The Economist: Special Edition

Find out what other people think about our Singaporean approach to water.

Eugene - Family friendly society

Singapore is a family friendly society as most companies in Singapore have policies that allow their workers to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Most companies in Singapore operate a five day work week, as well as giving their employees at least fourteen days of annual leave, despite guidelines that say employees need only be given fourteen days of annual leave after 8 years of service with the company. This gives employees plenty of time on weekends to spend with their families. They can also take up to about fourteen days paid leave to go on a holiday with their families. This ensures that Singaporean workers can spend enough time with their families even with a busy work schedule. However, just because Singapore has family friendly policies in place does not mean that Singapore workers will appreciate it. Because of Singapore’s highly competitive standards at the workplace, many workers will choose to work overtime or on weekends, and not take all of their annual leave so as to appear more hardworking to the company. This makes all the family friendly policies in Singapore useless as workers in Singapore do not bother even try to maintain a healthy work-life balance. However, the people who do so are a minority in Singapore, and many actually do try to spend time with their families. Therefore, I think that Singapore is effectively a family friendly society.

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How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders?
The government may monitor the actions of people when the actions of people may bring harm to the society. For example, there are black markets around the world. Those black markets sell harmful goods such as cigarettes, drugs which are illegal in the society. When such demerit goods are bought from black market, people may suffer from addiction which influences their families and even the society. Thus, government may monitor the actions of those people are harmful to the society in order to protect the majority of the society. However, someone may argue people have their privacy even when they are doing harmful things. For example, people in Tibet should have their own rights to conserve Buddhism culture. The government should not monitor the action those Tibet people doing their Buddhism staff……

[FAIZAAAAH!] Singapore a family-friendly society?

Stand: to a limited extent.

Singapore is trying to promote family bonding amongst its people. The government is aware that family is the basic unit of a society. In order for the society to be better, individuals do have to consider the importance of their families. Thus, the government is promoting the importance of families through various policies. For example, the 5-day work week policy has been implemented in view of this issue. With this policy, families are expected to be able to spend more quality time with one another especially on weekends. Families go on outings such as picnics or do activities together like cycling to strengthen the family unity. However, this policy is not able to include everyone in the country as it can only be applied to the civil servants only. Furthermore, this policy does not ensure that families actually spend time together on the weekends. Many teenagers, especially, would rather spend their weekends together with their friends than their family. This is usually because, at that age, teenagers are obliged to succumb to peer-pressure. For example, teenagers could reject their parent’s offer to go out with the family just to be able to join their friends. Also, parents who are not civil servants are not able to spend their weekends with their children if they have to work on weekends. Therefore, Singapore is not really a family-friendly society just yet, although the government is already aware of such importance and is implementing policies.

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society? (mjc/2997/jc1/mye)

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society? (mjc/2997/jc1/mye)
Singapore is a family-friendly society to a large extent as it provides families in Singapoer with a chance to get together and bond. This is shown from the implementation of the 5-day work week in Singapore which applies for students and most working adults. The 5-day work week would reduce the amount of less effective or meaningful activities, while preserving or enhancing those which add the most value. This would increase efficiency and allow students and adults to have time off during the weekends to be with their families. With more free time during the weekends, families can go for outings over a longer period of time as compared to before, where they would have to work and spend time with their families within a day. However, some people might not be able to follow the 5-day work week closely as they could have difficulties completing their tasks and have to spend the weekends finishing up their work. Also, some people might choose to use the weekends to go out with friends instead of their families and this would not help to strengthen the bonds amongst the family. Hence, I conclude that Singapore is a family-friendly society to a large extent as even though people might not choose to be with their families during the weekends, the government still provides people with a choice to spend more time with their families.

Toby-How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders?(gce/2007)

I agree that the state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders as long as it does not affect the privacy of the people. A state should monitor the actions of people within its borders to prevent bad events such as terrorism from happening in the country. This could be through the usage of closed-circuit cameras or patrolling around an area. For example, people who are lurking suspiciously in the MRT could be monitored and followed to see what the person is up to. However, it might be difficult as this might be against the personal privacy of the person and makes it bad for the government to monitor. For example a person who is behaving suspiciously in the MRT might just be waiting for a friend. Thus a state should have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders as long as it does not affect their personal privacy of the person.

i dont understand what i am writing. Sorry.

How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its border?

The government in a state would make decisions that could help in reducing social problems. Some people who are uneducated are unable to make wise choices and might even carry out activities that might arouse society’s unwanted attention. For example, in Singapore, the government makes it a point that everyone must attend public schools rather than home schooling. This form of monitoring helps to ensure that the correct knowledge are imparted to young adolescents such that they would not be carrying the wrong kind of mindset when they step out to the society. This form of monitoring ensures that no one are incorrectly influenced by only one belief- parents but to discover their own beliefs by exposing to more information. However, state monitoring also means that the people actions are restricted by governments’ belief. What if government makes wrong choices? Hence, to minimize this situation from arising, government can interact with people so that government is open up to people’s comments. This helps in narrowing the gap between the people and government. Furthermore, this form of healthy interaction enables people to understand the governments’ decision and thus the state should have the right in monitoring the actions of people within its border- like a family!

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

P: Singapore is a family friendly society when it comes to helping the employed to balance their family and work life.

E: This is an important factor as without the help to maintain a balance, many may end up focusing more on their work and neglect their family. They tend to prioritize their work above all others and sacrifice all time spent with the family to handle their ‘endless’ amounts of work that never fails to pile up.

E: For example, Singapore government has implemented schemes such as the five-day work week for civil servants and incentives for couples to live with their elder parents or grandparents. Five day work week would help workers to put away some time for their family and the parent or grandparent incentive scheme would encourage more couples to accommodate their parents or grandparents such that they can continue looking after them and to spend time with their noble parents or grandparents. Such schemes not only assist in maintaining a more healthy work and family life but spurs people to spend time with their family.

Limitation and Elab: Although the government has put forward schemes to encourage people to spend time with their families, some workaholics are still reluctant to take time off their work. Such people are most probably those who are at the top of their corporation or are working hard to be at the top hence they do want to sacrifice every bit of precious time they have to work on family activities.

(Couldn’t finish evidence to support limitation and link)

GRACY

Ivy. How far should a state have the right to monitor the actions of its people within its borders.

The government should have the right especially when actions undertaken by its citizens prove to pose a danger to society. These actions may include the smuggling and trafficking of goods such as drugs and wartime weapons. These goods pose great harm to society and are universally recognized as goods prohibited by the world for individual use as well as the abuse of it. This is because drugs cause detrimental effects to the body on the individual level, though it may prove to be far fetch from causing harm to society, it can affect the country’s reputation and economic growth.
However, some may argue by stating that it is difficult to define the magnitude of ‘danger’ posed by the actions taken and actions taken by the government would be seen as infringing the citizens rights and freedom of choice. For example, the government limits the amount and the criteria to be met when buying drugs for medical purposes. Therefore, some may find it a hassle having to consult a medical specialist before being allowed to buy the drugs for example pills to improve one’s sleeping habits. I agree that these measures taken seems to restrict the freedom and actions. On the other hand, one must realize that these restrictions are put in place for the good of the people. Hence I feel that the government do have the right to monitor the actions of the people as the welfare of the people outweighs the infringement of people’s rights, after all it’s the government the ones who make important decisions for the people.

Ying Ting's - "How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders?"

A state needs to monitor the actions of people within its borders when there may be threats to society’s welfare, such as safety. Safety has become a huge issue in recent years after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups are becoming more prevalent, and with the presence of terrorist groups increasingly felt by bombing attacks, it has contributed to increased insecurities among people. In order to maintain social cohesiveness, governments need to intervene and monitor the actions of people within their country so as to prevent terrorist attacks, and also to give its citizens a sense of security by showing that something is being done about these issues. However, this has led to an intrusion to people’s privacy, and the issue of human rights has been brought up countless of times. This has led to people terming these policies of monitoring as ‘a trade-off between security and privacy’, with privacy being a ‘basic human right’. As much as many may feel irritated by these incessant monitoring of their actions, I feel that a trade-off between security and privacy is worth it in order to protect our people, and to protect our countries sovereignty, social welfare, as well as economic growth. If a terrorist attack were to occur, it would lead to widespread panic, and interference with our daily lives. It can be seen from 911 that a terrorist attack could lead to a worldwide recession, thus harming the economy, and also, grievances among the people as they have lost their loved ones. Psychological health of the people will decline, and there will be decreased morale within the country. I feel that it is better to be safe than sorry, and as long as these monitoring policies prove to be of use, with a number of terrorist plots having been uncovered, it should continue on. Thus I feel that the state should have the right to monitor the actions of people, to a large extent.

Brian - How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders?

The government should not have too much authority to monitor the actions of its people if it causes social unrest as people do not feel secure as their privacy is being invaded by state officials. Even though I agree that the government should be concerned about the welfare of its people, they should not have the right to check up and spy upon the people as and when they like. People should be given their own privacy as long as they do not threaten the security of the nation. For example, in USA, the government is able to tap into peoples’ telephone lines without the consent of the people involved. They claimed that they were trying to locate and stop possible terrorist attacks from happening. This has caused much disturbance in the people of USA as they feel that they are being watched upon by the government every second of their lives and do not feel that they have any privacy at all. However, I feel that the government still has to have some sort of control over what happens in their nation to be able to govern the nation properly. With zero monitoring of the peoples’ actions, people could be involved in illegal activities without being afraid of getting caught. For example, some nations’ police force uses phone tapping to track down criminals by tapping into their conversations and hunt them down. Hence the government should monitor the actions of people within its borders if problems escalate to a national level and rupture the stability of society.

[Pang Chin Wang] - How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders?

The government is a body that represents the nation and makes decisions for its citizens. Basically, they care for the welfare of the people in terms of healthcare, education and lodging by setting and facilities that are accessible and affordable. Although the state decides for the welfare of its people, I do not agree that they should have a right to monitor the action of its people due to the fact that every citizen has their basic freedom of rights and privacy that allows them to do things freely as long as they do not harm our society. Furthermore, everyone should be given its own privacy as there are sensitive matters that some people might not be willing and able to share. These are mostly practiced in democratic nation when its people also have the freedom of choice to make decisions for them. However, in certain unforeseen circumstances I agree that the state should have a right to monitor the actions of its people if a threat is present. When a threat poses a danger to the entire nation, the government should be responsible for bringing it to an end and as a result, for certain cases it is understandable when the state monitors any suspicious characters so that their country would be much safer for its people. For example, phone tapping is used in investigations by the police during cases such as kidnapping, bomb threats so that the police force would be able to track down the culprits. This strengthens the nation’s internal security and deters any possible threats. Hence, I feel that the government should not monitor the actions of people within its border.

How far should a state have the right to monitor the actions of people within its borders? Pan Jieming not far

Point: The state should be given the right to spy on people when they are in the public within its borders in the name of protecting its citizens and society.
Elaboration: As far as personal privacy is concerned, some people are perfectly fine with being monitored in the public. As they believe public displayed behaviours are actions that they themselves want to present to others, what is there to hide?
Evidence: In China, there are countless cameras installed by government everywhere on the streets or outside the shops. This is to ensure the safety of themselves as well as limit any potential unlawful behaviours. Those who may indulge in crime may be detered by the risk of been caught or recognised by the cameras installed.
Limit: However, these cameras should not capture images of what's within the private house or anywhere outside public area. Those images captured will be deemed as a form of violation in people's right and privacy. Things which people do in private areas are their personal issue which they do not want any attention or intervention. Despite the risk of unlawful behaviours in private areas, the state do not have the right to spy on everyone just so that they could arrest those criminals. In england, there are more than 1500 image captured on the citizens daily, this leads to many disputes and people are fearful of showing themselves in the public or even at home. The society will be threatened with chaos.
Link: Thus

How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders?(gce/2007) / Eunice

A state should have the right to monitor the actions of people within its borders because this ensures national security. Though majority of a country’s people are decent, there might be some unscrupulous ones among the crowd. These people pose potential threat to the security of the nation. For example, during war times, there could be spies from other countries within a state and if the government does not monitor their actions, secrets that would make the state vulnerable to other countries would be leaked out. However, this might not be applicable to modern day warfare as a lot of countries’ secrets can be hacked through technology as well. Countries now store their data in softcopy as well so even if no one tries to get the information physically, chances are still quite high that they can break into the database and steal important documents. For example, there are a lot of trained computer professionals all over now. These people, if used correctly can bring great benefits but if a country decides to play dirty, there are at an advantage as well. Therefore, to be on the safe side and to place national security as top priority, a state should have the right to monitor the actions of people within its borders in order to reduce the occurrence of incidents which might threaten security.

Jaron :To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

PEEL-EEL

Singapore can be considered as a family-friendly society as it encourages us to spend time and have social interactions. An example of a family friendly policy in Singapore is the five-day work week. Sngaporeans need only work for five weekdays a week. This is in an effort to promote family bonding in Singapore. Families are able to spend their weekends together and this results in an improved bond between family members. Also, with the two days without work, it is also encouraging workers to have a break between weeks so as to allow them to have preparations or relaxations before going back to the workforce. However, not everybody is entitled to the five-day work week. Such people are service providers or blue collar workers. These group of people may have to work throughout the entire week without any breaks. As these people do not have the luxury of a five-day work week, their family bonds may not be as strong as others who are entitled to the five-day work week. This may instead lead to a negative effect to these people as they are unable to spend time with their families. Therefore, Singapore is not completely a family friendly society as not everybody benefits from the five-day work week.

[pinghao] To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore can be considered a famliy-friendly society to some extent as our government encourages family bonding within a society. This is because the family is the basic unit of our society, and the Singaporean government recognises the importance of a healthy family bond between its citizens. The Singaporean government thus tries to encourage family bonding through policies and activities. For example, the 5-day work week policy was implemented so that parents would be able to go home to be with their children during the weekends. This extra time spent with the family would be able to help facilitate greater understanding within the family and allow them to bond. However, even though the government can be seen trying to come up with measures to create a family-friendly society, it would cease to work without the compliance of the family members themselves. For example, even if the working parents of a certain family were given weekends off to rest and bond with their family, these parents may be workaholics and choose to bring their work home to continue instead. Their children may have school activities like co-ciricular activities (CCA) on a Saturday as well, or tuition and other activities that bar them from returning home to their families. Parents may also choose to go out with their friends to catch up, or with each other on dates, leaving their children behind. The 2 free days given on weekends would thus become days for the members of the family to escape school and work to relax individually, and purpose of using this time to spend with their family is not reached. What the government is able to do to facilitate family bonding is thus limited by the actions of the family members. Thus, Singapore cannot be considered a completely family-friendly society as it tries to create chances for building a family-friendly society, but some of these chances are forfeited.

How far should a state have the right to monitor the actions of people within its borders? Caleb Seow 10S403

The security of a country and its members are always ranked among the top priorities in any state. With such importance placed upon the internal security of a state, the monitoring of its people's actions within its borders is an important right by the state's government to implement. With the growth of the number of terror attacks that threaten a country's security on a country these present days, a government should always be alert for any signs of an impending attack that could place a state's security in jeapordy. By monitoring its people's actions, the government can pick out threats or potential attacks on a country even before they are exectued, which would be able to keep the protect the peace within the state, thus protecting society from harm that comes from the destruction caused during a terror attack. For example, the Singapore Internal security act (ISA) has managed to use this right to prevent many terrorist attacks from happening by running frequent background checks on its people's website visitations and monitoring our phone calls made. Also, the ISA has access to the many CCTV cameras around the singapore state, which allows them to monitor any suspicious individuals actions and what they have been doing. When any suspicious behaviour is detected, the government can investigate immediately to prevent any form of attack. HOWEVER, the government should not have such a right if the people's every move is tracked and monitored. If the government creates a system such that everyone is being watched and monitored at all times, a sense of exposed personal privacy would be felt, which is a universal infringment of an individuals rights for personal privacy. This could cause an outrage of privacy within society. For example, during the World War II, under Hitler's regime, he implemented a system where everyone was watched by his secret police. If the people made any actions or words that were disrespectful to the government, the secret police would find out. Such an act of having "eyes everywhere" made the people feel uncomfoprtable with having their rights to privacy being infringed. Thus, a governement should only monitor a peoples actions when the security of the state is at stake, but not when it invades a society's personal privacy.

How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of its people within its borders?

The state should have the right to monitor the actions of its people within its border as they can make sure that the society's welfare is maximised. The state help to ensure that certain actions taken by its people are healthy and beneficial for the society and their monitoring reduce the potential of making the wrong decisions which can lead to detrimental effects. For instance, governments' policies and regulations like banning of smoking in certain places in Singapore. Not only does smoking pollutes the e3nvironment, it can cause health hazards. State's monitoring guide its people in making the right decisions. However, when the state have the right to monitor the actions of its people within its border,one's privacy can be easily invaded and their freedom restricted. There is a close line between monitoring and controlling. Sometimes, monitoring can lead to excessive restrictions of the people's action, then it becomes a form ofcontrolling, hence losing their freedom. Freedom is an universal right. Their actions would be controlled by the state and also forced to do what the state desires or they would have to face the fines imposed. For example, Singapore practises high level of censorship. Most of the media's content are largely censored to make sure that their contents is not destructive to Singapore's image. Hence, the people's perspective of issues around them would be narrowed. So, the state should have a right but not too much.

Amsyar: How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders?

Firstly, within its borders, a government does have a right to monitor the actions of their people. It could be said that the government has to monitor the actions of their people because it is the most effective way for them to try and improve the nation's situation. For example, the local telcom company, Singtel, has recently been accused for keeping all information about their clients and consumers, which is said to be against normal regulations. However, the government allegedly allowed it, so that they can keep a look out for suspicious individuals. This is a matter of national security, hence the government has every right to monitor the actions of their people so as to achieve security for them as well. However, it is not applicable when the government infringes on their people's personal rights and choice. When the government infringes on an individual's personal choice, it leads the individual to believe that the government does not trust him, and that the government is implying that they know what is better for the individual, rather than the individual himself. This in turn could lead to very serious consequences for the government and the nation as a whole. If more and more people feel the same way, it could lead to violent protests against the government and destabilise the entire nation. Therefore, i believe that the state should have the right to monitor the actions of the people within its borders, as long as it does not infringe on the people's own personal choices.

I NOT FARIS: To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Recently, the Singapore government has been encouraging couples to have more children. The government has come up with policies that allow for a more family oriented society. This is because research carried out by the government has proven that a happy working man is more productive than a depressed worker. The happiness is a result of quality family bonding and interaction which is largely lacking in most societies. For example, the government has policies such as baby bonus and lengthen the duration for maternity leave for expectant working mothers. However, this is not entirely true of Singapore's society. Singapore has grown from a small fishing village to an impressive metropolitan city. Its society has also changed over the years from having a traditional view on almost everything to becoming more liberal-minded. We can see that there are many provocative advertisements being displayed, be it on television or billboards, on a large scale basis and can be seen almost everyday. Such messages may be misintrepretated by the young mind and this may have adverse effects in future. Hence, Singapore is a family-friendly society to a small extent.

{ChRiStOpHeR} EVALUATIVE~(/>.O)~***

The Singapore government has passed policies and laws to allow busy families to spend time together. With these policies, parents are allowed a rest from work to bond with the children and their spouses to foster stronger family bonds during their "not-working" hours. With these policies, parents are able to take their children out on trips or simply relax at home, enjoying quality family time. For example, the Singapore government has introduced the "Five-day work week', where parents only work five days a week, thus there is available time for them to rest during the weekends, play with the children, spend time with their spouses since they do not have to work on weekends. However, some working parents are bombarded with work during the five day week and are unable to finish their work. Thus, they mostly bring their unfinished work back home, slaving throughout the weekend to complete their urgent assignments. In most cases, work takes priority over family, as income is earned through work. Due to this, parents sometimes are not able to spend time with the family. Especially in such a modern and competitive society like Singapore, more parents neglect their family because of work as time is money in hectic Singapore society. Thus, most of their ffree time is spent on work, trying to earn more income or catching their employers' attention to get promotions. They have to prove their worth as it is easy to be replaced by other talented people as many are highly educated in Singapore. Thus, it is important for them to keep on working so as to not lose out to the rest. Also, by earning higher income by working harder, the parent is more able to support the family. The children and spouses may be neglected as a result of this overwhelming trend of working. Thus, the five day work week is rendered less effective as the working parents do not spend time with the family, instead they slave away in their room trying to complete their work before the weekend comes to a close. In conclusion, the government may have introduced measures to promote a family-friendly Singapore, however, it is not very effective due to the parents working during their free time, being unable to bond with their family much.

[Adeline]: To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore is a family-friendly society as the government has taken necessary measures to ensure family bonding. Policies are set so as to ensure that parents have sufficient amount of time to spend with their children. As parents may get become too focus on their work and neglect their children in the process, such family bonding time is necessary to ensure that the family members still understand each other. If not, they may just drift apart which leads to a broken family. As the importance of family bonding has been observed by the government, they have setup policies such as the “5-day work week”. This ensures that parents will spend a certain amount of time with their children each week. However, there are also times where the families do not put in the effort to ensure family bonding happens. For example, parents may bring home work to do over the weekend as they are unable to complete during working hours. The children may also choose to go out with their friends instead of spending time with their families. Thus this policy may not be truly effective as the family may not do their share to ensure that this policy works and family members are neglected in the process of their "selfish" behaviours. However, Singapore is still considered a family-friendly society as the importance of family bonding is being seen by the government and society. Thus most families will take the responsibility to ensure that such policies will work, and family bonding will occur.

Nordiyanah Samsuddin: "To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society"

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore government has came out with various policies to allow its citizens to spend more time with their family. This is due to the fast-paced lifestyle of Singaporeans who are constantly chasing for time and constantly competiting with others. As such, they do not have much time to spend with family members and this would result in various effects like child negligence. To combat this problem, the goverment has came out with policies like the five-day work week where civil workers would only have to report to work 5 times a week. They would then have the priviledge to spend the entire weekend with their families and would hence have more time with their families. However, not everyone benefits from this policy. For example, taxi drivers and hawkers would still need to continue working.This is due to the fact that "the more the work, the more they earn". They do not have the priviledge of the weekends to spend with their family. This results in them not having the time to spend with their family. It is true that the five-day work week helps Singaporeans have more time but on the flipside, this policy does not cover the entire Singapore population. Hence, it is not entirely true that Singapore is a family-friendly society.

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

Have the new media changed our lives for the better? gracy's P-E-E-L
New media has changed our lives for the better as it provides us an opportunity to make a wider circle of friends and gain popularity.
Before the advent of new media such as blogs and twitter, communication among people is limited to meet ups and functions through the mobile and telephones the people we want to talk to. Now, anyone and everyone can read what you type almost instantly.
Take Bryan Boy, a virtual ‘nobody’ who started to blog 5 years ago has become a phenom in the fashion blogosphere. Through blogging, he has displayed his daily fashion pieces and his life was changed overnight from a person with no status to a person who is renown in the fashion industry. From this, we can see that Bryan Boy’s live have been changed for the better as his talent has been uncovered and his passion of designing clothing is supported by many people.
Therefore, the new media has improved our lives in a way it helps us to become more connected with others.

Have the new media changed our lives for the better? -FAIZAAAH!

The new media has enabled the people of today to be able to express themselves better than before. Before new media existed, the forms of expressing one’s feelings are limited to diaries, and verbal chats with peers and family. With the invention of blogs and social networking sites, people are able show the rest of the world how they feel. It feels good when we know that there are others that are reading how we are feeling. For example, on Facebook, each time we give updates, friends are able to comment and “like” our posts. It feels nice when we know people actually bother to know how we are feeling and sometimes try to make us feel better. However, some may say that many teenagers today are addicted to the internet on sites such as Facebook and Blogger, so much so that their studies has been procrastinated over and over again. As a result, their assignments and homework are not done on time. However, most youth are able to balance their time between utilizing the new media and studies. Addiction to new media only occurs to a small group of youth who generally do not know how to balance their time. In fact, youth can express their words of stress through the new media such as their Blogs as a form of relieving it. This can actually help them in coping with studies. Therefore, the new media has enabled the people today to be able to express themselves freely, causing a change in our lives for the better.

Ying Ting "Have the new media changed our lives for the better?"

New media has changed our lives by making the world more connected. It has been used as a tool to communicate and voice out opinions to reach a wide audience, which could not be done in the past. A decade ago, blogs were unheard of and people could not vent their frustrations and voice out their opinions as freely to others because they fear what others might think of them. Now, there is a choice for people to remain anonymous when voicing out there opinions, thus people find it easier to be more truthful when giving feedback. Also, new media has allowed for greater connectivity between people as the internet can be used as a tool for communication. In the past, we had to communicate through talking on telephones, or by postage mail. With the development of new media, such as Twitter and Facebook, we are able to communicate with others instantly by posting out our thoughts and status updates. This allows for faster communication and increased efficiency in getting our thoughts known. Even though people may say that with increased ability to remain anonymous online comes increased boldness for people to post hurtful remarks, I feel that it is just a minority group of people who do so. Most people use new media in a way that benefits themselves and others, thus there is a net increase in positive changes to our lives rather than negative changes to our lives. Either way, new media has become an integral part of life, and as society progresses, we have to adapt to the increased usage of new media. It is here to stay; as most people have seen how new media can benefit us. Thus, base on the above points, new media has indeed changed our lives for the better by increasing efficiency in communication.

Brian : Has new media changed our lives for the better?

New media has changed the way we live our everyday lives as it has affected our method of collecting or obtaining information. We have access to whatever information we desire anytime and anyplace due to the advancement of the interactive power of computer and communications technology, and also the internet. In the past it was extremely difficult to gather information that we desire and it required a lot of research. However, with the arrival of new media, such information can be obtained easily. For example, now that we have access to WiFi and smart phones, we can use these tools to log onto the internet and get the information that we want instantly. This has allowed us to save much time and effort in gathering these information, allowing us to put that time saved to other uses. We have thus become more efficient in the way we live our lives as new media has sort of ‘prolonged our working day’ by shortening the amount of time we take do accomplish our duties. Hence new media has changes our lives for the better.

NEW media (Toby)

I agree that new media has benefited our lives. It has changed the way we communicate with one another. It allowed us to express our thoughts and ideas easily through blogs or social-networking websites like facebook. We communicate through the internet more than just communicating face to face. However some might say that we become more anti-social although we think that we are becoming more sociable though the use of new media. Previously, diaries are used instead of blogs. Blogs allows other users to see what we wrote as it becomes public information instead of private information in the diaries we previously used. Blogs help to enhance our way we explain things or events as it allows us to upload pictures to express instead of just words which sometimes difficult to explain. For example describing a place where you had your 16th birthday which requires a lot of descriptions. In addition, blogs allow people to read easily as the font could be choosed. Diary sometimes is illegible to read. Thus new media has changed our lives and allowed us to benefit more by being able to express our thoughts freely and easily.


• What is new media?
• New media is the media like blogs or facebook which we ourselves create.
• What aspects of our lives have been changed by new media?
• The way we communicate with one another
• How did we carry out those aspects of our lives before new media?
• Handphones
• In what way does new media benefit our lives?
• It saves us on our handphone bills and let other users read your thoughts anytime anywhere
• In what way could it actually be a bane?
It makes us anti-social and communicate face to face less.

Eunice: Have the new media changed our life for the better?

New media has changed our lives in terms of communication and it has done so by providing many other alternative sources for expression of opinions. Previously, people communicated with each letter via letter writing and telephones. Though these forms of communication still exists now, people are predominantly occupied with the new media way of communication, such as blogs, web messengers, e-mails or social networking sites like Facebook. We are benefitting from this change because such amusements have made communication a whole lot simpler and convenient due to the reduction in logistics. Letter writing in the past still require us to pick up a pen, paper, envelope and stamp but communication through technology only requires us to sit in front of the computer. It is also a lot more convenient because communication through the internet is instantaneous while letter writing in the past needs to factor in the time taken for the postman to deliver the mail. Therefore, new media has largely changed our lives by altering our dominant ways of communication.

Jieming:Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

Internet is one of the most common form of new mass media, indeed it has change our lifestyle drastically. Our daily activities range from work, school to family have improve to become more efficient and enjoyable with the help of these tools. (point)
In school, we used to have lectures and lessons where teachers have to spend all the time writing everything on the board and teach us verbally. Now, we can stay home and enjoy the accessible and efficient e-learning which saves time and energy .(elaborate)

Furthermore, students are about to learn at their own pace; are given a more thorough overview of the topics and making learning experience more visual and entertaining. In Singapore, schools are strongly advise to use multi-media teaching in order to make learning experience more enriching. E-learnings are carried out in every new topic to clarify the concepts. (evidence)
Thus, new mass media has enable us to make our learning experience a more enjoyable and efficient task., it has not only benefit the teachers but also the student vastly. (link)
Pan Jieming

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

New media has changed the way we perceive life and the way we live our lives. Social networking sites have allowed us to stay connected to distant friends and relatives. It has also enabled those in the business industry to publicise their products and services. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are just few of the many similar sites available. Many corporations are turning to them to reach out to a greater consumer market. This also benefit us, the consumers, because we can research about the particular product that we want to purchase and therefore enable us to make a more informed decision. Some consumers are able to filter out irrelevant information and do not easily get tricked by the gimmicks that people normally fall for. Hence, new media has changed our lives for the better.

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

New media has drastically changed the way we communicate with one another. It allows us to share our thought and feelings with everyone else through blogs or social networking sites. This allows us to communicate with our friends even when weare not with them. Before, people used to confide in diaries or in close friends, however, now, most people, especially youths, are comfortable with posting their innermost thoughts on the web for public viewing. Most people today have accounts on social networking sites or blogs and are extremely active on them, connecting with old and new friends alike. This shows how people who use new media are more sociable. Therefore, i believe that new media has changed our lives fot the better.

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

New media is an amalgamation of traditional media such as film, images, music, spoken and written word, with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computer-enabled consumer devices and most importantly the internet. Examples of traditional media include newspapers and radios while examples of new media include the internet. This has certainly changed our lives as new media has provided us with convenience and accessibility to the happenings around the world. In the past, people used to obtain the news from radios and newspapers whereas nowadays, there are many platforms like the internet which provides the latest news around the world. This has hastened the pace of life as in the past, it took a long time for news to be dissipated to all parts of the world. The world's economy has been boosted by this as people are able to pick up news at the fastest possible time and make decisions quickly. One example of new media is the internet where newspapers are using it as an alternative platform to the traditional newspaper. These newspaper companies have their own websites where news are updated "live" and people can get the latest news at any point of time. Therefore, new media have changed our lives for the better.

Have the new media changed our lives for the better? Caleb Seow 10S403

The world has never been more connected with the evolution of media. New media now allows us to take a peek into the personal lives of others, and to upload a piece of our personal lives online. New media now has the capability of spreading personalized content to the rest of the world in mere seconds, allowing anyone and everyone to have instant access to our files, images and even music we upload online, with interactive user feedback from others as well. This has connected the world more than ever, especially on an individual basis. Our lives have now been interlinked, and for the better as we can now access information and feedback we could never have dreamed of having with the old media. One such example is the advent of the social networking site, Facebook. This form of new media allows users to post their thoughts, images, likes and dislikes online for the viewing of the online community, as well as any other internet users who stumble across this information. In turn, the online community can give feedback almost immediately, allowing for creative participation from other users to comment on your own personal life. However, such accessibility to information is often exaggerated. Privacy features on many media websites are often overlooked, and we fail to see that people tend to post and upload what they want others to see, and at many times, this might not be their true self, but merely a part of them that they choose to display to the online community. We may not always see who they truly are, but merely an illusion they display for others to see. This causes are lives to built upon superficiality, where we all try to show the world the part of us that looks good, but not our innermost self, in turn, harming the way we live our lives. Therefore, new media has given us increased accessibility and connectivity to the rest of the world, but has also injected superficiality into our lives. Therefore, new media has not changed our lives for the better.

CALEB SEOW 10S403

Have the new media changed our lives for the better? Pang Chin Wang

With the rapid development in technology today, new media has greatly benefitted our everyday lives with its multi-purpose uses. Today, technology enables us to find information with just a simple click, no matter the place or time. As we begin to able to afford such advanced technology, we begin to rely too much on them on our everyday routines. Before, in order to be an aquaintance of someone, we try to get to know each other’s interests by having a chat. However, this has been replaced by the overwhelming growth of influence of social networking sites that enables people to find out information about other people almost instantaneously. This allows us to expand our social network effectively online and interact with people from overseas. For example, in recent years, Facebook has become a great hit in the world with as much as 400 million active members and this number is constantly growing everyday.

On the other hand, new media such as social networking may be regarded as ‘unhealthy’ acts as people do not directly interact with one another and may eventually end up becoming unsociable from not communicating with others. As people constantly stay home staring into their computer screen, they miss out on their social life and after a significant period of time may lose the interest of directly talking with someone. As a result, I feel that new media has benefitted our lives and changed it for the better.

Pang Chin Wang

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

With technological advances in today's era, it is inevitable for new innovations and advancements to percolate into our lives. Our social interactions have drastically changed with the introduction of new media into our lives. Facebook, a social networking site, is now a tool utilised by almost every teenager to expand their social networks. Through Facebook, people can interact with their friends, acquire new acquaintances and share their lives with other people online. This outlet has allowed people to socialise through a non-conventional method via the internet instead of the conventional method of physical, social interactions. Technological advances such as these social networking sites improve the social well-being of people as a different form of expressing thoughts is available. However, while there is a new outlet for socializing, people may lose contact with the physical world. Addiction to the Internet is prevalent among teenagers today and though they might have a new outlet for interactions, a similar one has been banished. This may cause people to be anti-social and be segregated from society; a form of ethereal disconnection from physical interactions. Therefore, with the not so intense opportunity cost of new media, new media has changed our lives for the better.

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

The new media has brought about many changes in our lives, some for the better, some for the worse. However, i believe that the new media have not changed our lives for the better. In fact, it could very well have made it worse. An example of these changes are our openness to share our feelings with family members. During the age of traditional media, teenagers and young adults would share their joys and troubles with their parents and siblings, and it would be common. However, due to new media, the same group of people nowadays prefer to share their feelings on their blogs or post it on "facebook". This could have some adverse effects on family relations. This is due to the fact that it minimises contact with family members, thus they distance themselves from one another which would lead to isolation within a family. Furthermore, if a teen gets overwhelmed with emotions or gets stressed, and he realises that the new media is unable to give him the help he needs, he will then feel like there is no one to help him due to the isolation in his family. Therefore, he will feel helpless and lonely, even in his own family. Thus, due to the isolation within a family that the new media creates, i believe that the new media have not changed outr lives for the better.

Amsyar 10S403

Have the new media changed our lives for the better? Yaksh Birla

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

The inception of new media has been characterized by the move from the traditional media such as television, music and movies to an amalgamation of the traditional media and computer-enabled mediums and devices. The growth of new media has encompassed much of the 21st century by far and tends to rob headlines and staggering information. But frankly, has new media changed us as human beings? We can now constantly see ourselves plugged in and be encapsulated by these 'realities' that have been bestowed upon our consciousness. The new media has allowed us as human beings to perceive the virtual world as something that is increasingly taking a physical form. We are now plagued with the influence of such socially satisfying yet largely homogeneous forums such as Facebook and MySpace to grant people the liberty to put on personas that appeal to the masses of people watching from the stands. These ideals have manifested themselves and have caused people to constantly change and 'better' themselves in order to meet society's expectation of them. The creation of a surreal form of our own self has us losing our individual tweaks and quirks and rather creating socially optimal drones out of our own selves. In all eventuality, we may end up losing ourselves to the very constructs of new media, inadvertently becoming it. Our lives will be the entertainment others, on the stands, desire.

Has new media changed our lives for the better?

The presence of new media has enabled people, young and old alike, to facilitate free expression and advertisement across the globe. People are now able to express their thoughts and feelings about certain issues online and broadcast it to the whole world if they choose, instead of simply writing in a diary like before. New media has also become a method of advertising for companies and private entreprenuers. This has been proven to be more effective than simply putting up posters and sending flyers. For example, new media has given rise to the concept of blogshops and podcasts for aspiring entreprenuers to advertise what they want to sell, and many people nowadays convey their thoughts and feelings about their lives, or certain hot topics in the world, online on their blogs. Examples of these websites for them to express themselves include Blogger, Livejournal, and Wordpress. Therefore, new media like the Internet has changed our lives for the better by allowing free expression and faster and more convienient ways of advertisement to facilitate sales.

The presence of new media has also allowed people to connect with each other much more easily. Before the rise of new media, one of the only methods of making new friends and connecting with old ones are through letter-writing, pen-palship and talking through the phone, all of which are costly over a long period of time and is limited to an area. Now, with such new creations like Facebook, MSN and Skype, people are able to make new friends, catch up with old ones by talking with each other over the net, and playing games and applications together. For example, Facebook has hundreds of applications and games for people to play and compete with each other. This helps to strengthen their bonds through interaction. However, these new media may also have adverse effects on people as some people may abuse the use of new media to cheat people. There have been many cases whereby people make new friends through MSN or Facebook and get cheated as a result. Thus, new media may have opened doors to more communication among the people, but may result in higher crime rates as well. However, as long as these sites are monitored to reduce this crime, and we practise caution ourselves whilst on the Internet, all these problems can be controlled. Thus new media has also changed our lives in a positive way through more open communication.

-pinghao

Have new media changed our lives for the better?

New media has helped to condensed the networking system around the globe allowing people to receive informations with the least possible time. This has altered most people's accessibilty to gather the latest infomation, allowing them to make the necessary arrangements to suit the change. For example, the use of internet has successfully allow people to get necessary updates. Google, which is the world's top search engine, provides a wealthy platform for us to know more above things beyond us. Through this search engine, we are able to retrieve sufficient information and this helps to boost the knowledge of people. Hence, with the increase in conveniency and efficiency in filling the people's hunger for more knowledge, this has improved the lives most people. Thus, new media has managed to fufil the task in changing our lives for the better.

Mass Media, Freedom and censorship

New Media has provided us with much convinience especially in this fast-paced and globalised world. It allowed us to complete tasks more efficiently and at our fingertips. One example would be the use of blogshops or online sites through the internet allowed us to do our necessary shopping without leaving the house. This provided much convenience for the user especially when he or she is in a rush or faced some difficulties leaving the house to do the necessary restocking of basic necessities. Without new media, one has to visit the city to and face the trouble of looking for the goods in shops, this is extremely time consuming especially when the user is having a race against the time. The new media therefore comes into place to make the whole process of shopping a much easier task to complete and can be said to have improved our lives.



With the invention of the new media, people are able to connect with one another easily. This is highly beneficial as people nowadays are able to travel around the globe with much more ease and sometimes it is inevitable for one to stay in another part of the globe for a long period of time New media allows people from all over the globe to communicate with one another in a more efficient manner. One example, is the use of networking sites such as facebook and twitter. Facebook allowed us to update ourselves on our family and friends' activities and events even though they may be at the other end of the globe as well as to send out and receive messages within minutes. It is also cost-saving as it allowed users to have online chats with one another without having to afford the cost of long distance calls.
However, some may disagree with me that such inventions results in many losing personal touch of their loved ones and the rise of such networking sites resulted in a lot of uninvited harrassment and most of the time it is preyed on the youths. But, this all depends on how one uses the such sites. Most of the inventions in our lives has two sides, the pros and the cons. This all boils down on the decision made the user whether to abuse such beneficial invention or to make full use of it.

Ivy:)

Have the new media change our life for the better?

New media has allowed the opinions and views of the society to be more heard of. New media such as blogs has become a communicative tool that society can use to spread information or personal thoughts on an issue. In the past, such personal viewpoints are either hidden away or taken out to the speaker's corner to be revealed, which is rarely used. Therefore with the help of new media, these thoughts are no longer hidden and the society views can be taken into account for by the higher institutes. The higher institutes can thus make the appropriate decision to suit the needs of society. For example, there are several cases of facebook groups that are created as an online petition to change certain stuffs that affect society. New media is being use here to help people with similiar viewpoints gather together and make a difference to the society. As the higher institutes realises that the decisions they have made were wrong, they can take appropriate actions to alliviate the situation. New media serves as a platform for the society to voice their viewpoints on certain issues and be heard of. They no longer need to hide their thoughts.

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

Paragraph 1 (PEEL-EEL)

As technology advances, the world of new media is growing rapidly and it is affecting our social interaction as it has become easier to have communication with others these days no matter how busy we are. In the past, some of the ways that people stayed in touch with others were through the use of E-Mails and simply, by calling each other using the telephone or meeting up for a chat. People who did not have the free time would thus not have the chance to stay in touch with their friends easily. However, the new media like 'Skyping', 'Twitter, blogging and of course 'Facebook' has totally changed the way we live our lives. With 'Skyping', we are able to have face-to-face converstions with the other party online anyway they are in the world. It is cheaper than overseas call and is also convenient and easy as long as we have a webcam in our computers or laptops. This has aid us in staying in close contact with our family and friends. In the past, people only had the option of calling the other party and they could not choose other alternatives. Due to our hectic lives either in school or work these days, 'Twitter' has allowed us be updated about what our friends and family members are doing without having to meet up with each other face-to-face. This is a handy way to inform others about our lives. Ask anyone you know if they have a Facebook account and the answer would be "yes". Facebook allows one to publish pictures, update one's status, leave a message on other's profile and many more. This can be easily done anywhere with as more handphones have the internet access where people can conveniently log on to their Facebook account and it helps them to stay in touch with their family and friends much more easily than before. Hence, I think that the new media has changed our lives for the better as it has contributed to the improvement of communication between people hence allowing them to stay in touch with others easily.

Alicia :)

Xinfang

The exponential rate of new media users allow people to communicate and exchange ideas effectively within split seconds. New media includes internet, interactive television networks and multimedia information services. It helps to increase the interactive mass media and ease our hunger for knowledge. For instance, social networking website, Facebook allows their users to post as and when they want to, there is little censorship. Statistics show that there are up to 500 million facebook users each day and is ranked the world's top three search engine. With such accessibility, people are expose to the convenience of information and know what is happening around them, hence they would not be ignorant. However, there are bound to be unreliable information in the internet. Certain views and opinions can be biased. It is dangerous by the speed of how new media helps us to exchange information, there can be a negative influence. For instance, sensitive issues such as racial biasedness can lead to detrimental effects such as the instability of country. It might stir up conflicts and unhappiness among people. Hence, provided that new media has a high degree of censorship and yet not reducing any neccessary information, it have changed our lives for the better.

NEW MEDIA V(^.^)V

Have new media changed our lives for the better?

New media is the combination of traditional media like photos, videos, words or music with modern technology. New media has not changed our lives for the better as it has affected our ability to communicate with other people face-to-face. With the recent trend of blogs, more and more people, especially youths, are becoming less and less adept at communicating in person as most of their interactions with others are on the computer through blogs, MSN, or social networking sites like Facebook. Before the advent of new media, most of the communication was done face-to-face or through phone calls. This helps us develop our ability to interact with others personally as it was one of the few ways to communicate with others before new media was introduced to the society. Even, with phone calls, you could not see the person, but it was at least possible to hear their voice and the way they speak. Our experience in dealing with people will be enriched through understadning the way people act and look in different situations. However, with new media, majority of the interactions are done voice-less and without actually seeing the person, and this does not allow us to effectively judge situations when talking to others in person. This form of communication is done behind the safe confines of the computer, where we do not have to learn how to effectively talk to others in person as no words are exchanged, only typing is used. Thus, a problem arise, especially for adults who are working as they have to interact with others on a daily basis, and hold business meetings and entertain customers. If they do not possess good communication skills, it is likely that they will lose the deal and this has a negative impact on their career. Especially for entertaining clients, good socializing skills are required to curry favour with the client and clinch the deal. Large business networks must also be established through communication. Thus, if all we do is type on the computer without communicating through more traditional means, we will not develop the skills required to communicate effectively in person, and this can prove to be disastrous as we are unable to express ourselves once we leave our seat in front of the computer. Thus, new media has not changed our lives for the better as our ability to communicate might be impaired if we only communicate through new media.

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