Herzeleide Covarrubias Sánchez

How did the Industrial Revolution transform the way of life?

The industrial revolution was a complex process that transformed human society in
various ways. Today we can still appreciate the effects of this in many aspects of our daily lives.
With the appearance and growth of factories, people were increasingly attracted to migrate to a
new life in the city in search of new opportunities, which led us to move from a rural system of
manual production to an industrial production system that we still maintain today.
Life changes in many aspects with the appearance of urban centers, and with it the
increase in population, which year after year increased exponentially. At the beginning of this
urbanization, cities were terrible places to live, they were dirty, dangerous, they housed the lower-
class population in poor condition, and they were full of pollution due to all the production of the
moment. Over time, these aspects began to be taken into account and solutions were sought, such
as the invention of vaccines, which was a great advance for medicine, the means of transport were
potentiated to make life in the city more efficient as well as the necessary facilities began to be
created in the houses of the upper-class population, reducing the risk of infection.
Years, and even centuries before the Industrial Revolution, the way in which people
developed had not changed much until this date, where the way of life had been practically the
same. The industrial revolution changes this way of life bringing with it great technological
advances in different areas, either in medicine, increasing the life expectancy time, in architecture
and construction, with mass production that allowed greater efficiency for the use of materials and
introducing new ones such as steel, in the economy by introducing a new model of serial work
facilitating production, in society, by beginning with a true distinction of social classes with the
appearance of the bourgeoisie and the new middle class where upper class society begins to have
the comforts of running water in their homes and electricity, cities are transformed with railways
that modify the layout of the city, steam machinery is invented that facilitates and makes the
production more efficient where new concepts such as capitalism and communism are promoted.
However, the Industrial Revolution not only changed people's lives in a positive aspect but
also generated a large number of consequences such as the alienation of the working class as it
was disassociated from the entire production process by only concentrating on one task.
Specifically, an exploitation of the worker began to be generated by the upper classes or
bourgeoisie where many of them could not have access to housing, giving rise to the appearance
of marginal neighborhoods or slums, child exploitation also began to emerge where spaces of
work were not suitable and even negligible for workers and children with a large amount of
pollutants generated.
It is evident that it was this revolution that put us on the path of what we live today,
dramatically affecting our daily lives in our way of living, working, resting, entertaining,
manifesting, communicating, transporting ourselves, in the technologies that we have within the
reach of our hands and a variety of aspects, which we owe from the legacy of the Industrial
Revolution.