ENGLISH

WORK
MADE BY:
María Luisa Leó n Mayorga
Ixcel del Carmen Vallejos Altamirano
 How has the quality of life changed over the last few years?
Make a list of 5 things that have changed over the past 50 years or so. Make use of the “used to”
structures studied in this class and add reasons to each argument. Think about factors such as
the cost of life, weather, values, technology, life expectancy, education, health, lifestyle, habits,
and society, and so on. In small groups, do some research, prepare your arguments and get ready
to discuss your ideas with the class. Adding examples of real-life experiences to your arguments
not only adds value to your ideas but will also be a plus for this activity .

1- (Pollution and society) Pollution has increased

Nowadays pollution is one of the biggest problems that we face, and this is a result of many
factors combined, such as our lifestyle, our habits and the lack of awareness and responsibility to
solve the problem. This is more much noticeable in cities, and we, as city dwellers, have got used
to living with environmental, visual and noise pollution without the majority of us doing much
about it as the years go by and industrialization comes.

In consonance with an 2021 article published by National Geographic about Pollution, I can say
that actually Pollution is a global problem, and it is defined as “the introduction of harmful
materials into the environment”, those materials are called pollutants, and many of them are
created by human activity, for example, all the garbage and waste ending up in landfills, the
runoff and trash produced by factories, the emission of polluting gases such as carbon monoxide
and hydrocarbons from cars, pesticides\ chemical poisons used to exterminate insects, and all the
plastic and waste we produce to keep food and different products. The interesting fact is that
Pollution also comes from useful things for people or from things people do as something natural
(without thinking about the consequences) to facilitate the accomplishment of daily activities, to
obtain economical benefits or just to enjoy the time we spend, since we use to travel on cars or
buses to get faster to our destination, make use of electric energy to work, study, cook, light up
our place, watch the tv, use charging devices and do our house chores easily. We can also see a
lot of billboards, signs, advertising screens and banners offering services; stores and shops using
excessive lighting and vibrant colors to promote economical activity, and multiple transit devices
everywhere, which generates Visual pollution. Alternatively, in our city, there’s the
characteristic noise of urbanized areas due to various activities like the noise caused by
machinery, the noise created by vehicular traffic, the really loud music coming from shops,
restaurants and entertainment places, and even the music coming from our neighbor houses, no
matter if it is day or night. That’s what we call Noise pollution.
And following with the earlier comment and the examples of some pollutants, it’s enough whit
pointing out the fact that, sadly, we’re used to see our city full of garbage out of the right place
and that we feel a difference on the air when we travel out of the city, we see garbage on the
 street, on public places, green areas, and even in touristic places like the beach, lakes, in the
ocean and viewpoints, without forgetting to those people who throw it away trough cars
windows. All these exemplifications of pollution and behaviors are what make up the so-called
Environmental pollution.

2- (Health) Mental health problems are getting more common in young population

These days is more common to see people posting things associated to mental health or mental
illness on social media and social networks, either because they feel bad and are facing those
problems themselves or because they consider it a way to help to increase awareness and make
psychology more accessible to other people; fortunately today we can easily access to that kind
of information to learn and try to prevent dealing with those issues, but it is important to notice
that at the same time, while mental health is being promoted there is a large increase of the
number of young people who face anxiety, chronic stress and depression, who had experience
suicidal thoughts or are suffering from distinct problems associated to mental health or self-
esteem.
Many times old adults have told us that before they didn’t use to see cases of children and
adolescents suffering from mental disorders despite the harsh conditions in which many of them
lived or had to grow up, but now everything has changed and even if we can’t be sure of their
opinions about the past, it is a fact that nowadays mental illness have become into a global
problem, and there are more young adults, teenagers and children who struggle with mental
health problems or are been affected by emotional and psychological issues.

According to recent researches carried out and published by the American Psychological
Association, the percentage of young Americans experiencing certain types of mental disorders
has risen significantly over the past decade, and the record is greater across the globe as well
because more than 300 million of people (the 4.4% of the world’s population) suffer from
depression, and it is estimated that mental health conditions will affect a staggering one in four
people at some time in their lives.

Frequent causes for mental illness are childhood abuse, trauma or neglect, experiencing
discrimination, losing someone close to you, severe or long-term stress, having a long term
physical health condition, domestic violence, social isolation or loneliness, social disadvantage
or poverty, and unemployment or losing your job. All these causes may be valid reasons to
explain why many people develop some mental health issues, especially during this pandemic
(because it has not been easy to get used to the uncertainty and the necessary new lifestyle), but
in the other hand, some professionals have said that furthermore the previous mentioned causes,
under general conditions, despite factors such as work, diet or influence of genes and brain
chemistry, we can consider hustle life, cultural trends, lack of sleep and the increased of
 electronic communication as more related reasons for mental health problems in young people,
because research have shown that young people are not sleeping as much as the previous
generations, that they have more unstable relationships than old adults, and that digital media
may have changed social interaction and could have had a larger effect in young people over the
past 10 years.

3- We interact completely differently

Back in the 1960s, if you wanted to get in touch with a friend, you used to call them on the
landline and asked how they were doing. Now we use social media to know what's going on with
our friends. Which grants us a view on how their relationships are going, where they go on
vacation, etc.
Information that used to take a lengthy phone call to convey is now delivered by text.

4- Fewer people smoke and no one smokes indoors

Today only 15.5 percent of the population smokes cigarettes, and that number continues to
decline with each passing year. in the 1960s, 42 percent of the population used to smoke
regularly, in many places, including restaurants and airplanes.