The speeding up of life in many areas such as travel and communication has negative effects on society at all levels—individual, national and global. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

The acceleration of the tempo of life in travel and communication has led to globalization. This has undoubtedly affected the society at all levels – personal, national and international. However, I believe that not all the effects are negative. There are many positive effects also at all levels. Therefore, I partially agree with the given statement. In the following paragraphs, I intend to highlight the positive and negative effects of globalization.

At the individual level, to begin with, globalisation can create opportunities for employment. However, at the same time this could lead to unemployment and exploitation. We see that multinational companies employ many people in the developing countries, but it is also true that the package they are providing here is much less than what they have to pay in their own countries. Salaries are low and working conditions are often poor. What is more, Companies move to countries where labour is cheap. This creates redundancies, or job losses. Secondly, globalisation can give people a lot of choices. This is largely positive at the individual level.

At the national level, it could reduce poverty in the developing world. It encourages investment in less developed countries. The negative effect is that national identities are getting lost. We eat the same food, watch the same TV programmes, listen to the same music and wear the same clothes. People have also started speaking one language, English, in many parts of the world. In fact, English has become the lingua franca today.

At the global level, business is becoming increasingly international. A global economy means free trade between countries. This can strengthen political relationships. However, global trade also creates excessive waste and pollution.

To put it in a nutshell, I pen down saying that, as every garden has weeds, similarly the fast pace of life due to faster means of travel and the IT revolution also has its pros and cons. I believe that the advantages are more than the disadvantages.