In many ways I would say that living in this modern world is better, but also in many ways it seems like our ancestors had a better life.
Today we have radio, television, telephone, computers and hundreds of gadgets that our ancestors never had or could imagine possible. So we greatly enjoy these things. However, our ancestors never had to put up with meaningless talk shows on TV and overly loud pop music on the radio. I guess our ancestors also had more time to talk to each other instead of being like us who spent so much time looking at the ‘idiot box’.
On hot days I really appreciate that we have the air conditioning to cool us down. Our ancestors probably had to endure the heat or at best fan themselves with a leaf or something. However, we have become too dependent on air conditioning, especially in the car. On the rare occasions when it didn’t work well, I realized how uncomfortable it can be to sit in a car without air conditioning.
Speaking of cars, we also depend a lot on them. It’s nice to go at full speed on the highway, eating up the kilometers and reaching our destination in no time. It seems that everyone has the same idea too. So now, on our highways, it is virtually impossible to drive at full speed. It’s more like crawling from bumper to bumper in a traffic jam, breathing in stale gas and being late. Our ancestors from just a hundred years ago never had to go through such exasperating traffic jams. They probably walked with their food or rode horses. Come to think of it, they probably had to put up with sore feet and horse manure. Which is better, fumes or manure?
Medical care has improved by leaps and bounds. We are no longer plagued by many diseases that killed our ancestors. Tuberculosis, smallpox and leprosy, the scourges of yesterday, no longer bother us. However, AIDS never bothered our ancestors. We are facing a new threat.
Modern men and women are said to have longer lives. Does living longer necessarily mean a better life? I don’t know. A long time ago there were no hospitals and people died. Nobody paid anything for the treatment of his illness then. Today we pay large sums, but in the end we still have to die. Also, a longer life means we have to put up with more pollution, overpopulation, unemployment, and other modern ills. My great-great-grandfather could probably pick a mango from a tree and eat it without a second thought. I don’t have a tree to pick a mango. I have to buy one that may be loaded with pesticides and who knows what other poisons they put in it.
Looking at the few examples above, I can’t decide which era is better. Modern life has its good and bad parts. In the same way it was so to live in past ages. Actually, we have no choice but to live in our modern world whether we like it or not. How things will turn out will only be known when they happen. We just have a concert the best we can.