Question
In many countries, more and more people buy a wide range of household goods like television microwave oven and rice cooker. Do you think this is a positive or negative development?
Sample answer
With the proliferation of high-tech products in every walk of life, an overwhelming majority of families have possessed more than one piece of electrical device. Whether it does more good than harm to the society is what this essay focuses on.
Admittedly, a growing proportion of families nowadays have been accustomed to living with these amazingly versatile appliances. On one hand, thanks to the sophisticated design, doing domestic chores ceases to be a bother. For instance, a vacuum cleaner can help make even the carpeted floor dustless and a micro-wave oven make cooking a manageable and enjoyable process. Desirably, the present device can be so service-oriented that a rice cooker can automatically start to work as long as its owner presses a button on a remote control or set the schedule in advance. Thus the time and energy saved allows people to work and rest better. On the other hand, some appliances such as television set and stereo system benefit the families in quite a different way. It has been a routine for many families to gather around a TV after dinner watching their favored programs, which can be entertaining and informative in most occasions and educational in some.
Nevertheless, it can be a potential threat to the health of family members as well as the environment as a whole. Firstly, the convenience brought about by the appliances also deprives them of the possibilities to consume a regular amount of calories at home, which, in a long run, is likely to undermine their health since many of them have sat through a day in the workplace. Another detrimental effect is the notorious radiation and it has been reported that when some electrical device are placed in a limited close space, the radiation they give off is not added but multiplied and this can trigger cancer, hurt one' s eyesight and particularly damage the pregnant. Pitifully, a large proportion of the electricity is not made good use of since the poor design and some people just use them lavishly.
