Band 7+: TOPIC: Some people say that in the modern world, getting old is entirely bad. Others, however, say that life for the elderly nowadays ís much better than it was in the past. Both view and give opinion?

In the contemporary society, some individuals argue that getting old is completely bad, while others believe that the living standards for this age group have become much better. From my perspective, despite recognizing that the development of wellness services has somewhat facilitated the elderly’s lives, I firmly believe that their lives have become more uncomfortable due to financial and fraud issues.

Admittedly, the elderly now may lead an easier life due to the advancement of the medical discipline. Firstly, with the advent of various accessible service facilities dedicated to serving old people like regular health check-ups, senior citizens can proactively protect themselves from preventable diseases and receive well-being alerts on time. Secondly, coinciding with this development, medicines and related-techniques have also been enhanced. This has paved the way for better treatment of several diseases that the old are prone to such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular illnesses. Thus, these improvements on the availability of services and medical techniques have seemingly facilitated the old age in this modern society by minimizing mostly health-threatening factors.

However, this view fails to acknowledge the financial complexities that the elderly need to face. With the increased inflation combined with the loss of work ability, old individuals may struggle to make ends meet, thereby prohibiting their access to the aforementioned benefits that medical advancement yields. This is then further exacerbated by their vulnerability to scamming. Given the advancement of technology, scammers have diversified their methods of tricking which are beyond the senior dwellers’ capability to understand and avoid. For example, an aged woman in Vietnam in 2023 was deceived around 2 billion Vietnam dong because she received a made-up news telling her child was hospitalized and needed that amount of money to save him. Therefore, not only do the elderly have to face economic problems due to the inability to work, but they also need to cope with fraud and criminal acts which have become more sophisticated over time.

In conclusion, while acknowledging that old people’s lives may benefit from the medical growth, I strongly contend that the sophistication and complexity that a modern life has, such as financial problems and crime proneness, has deteriorated their living standards and prevents them from leading a comfortable life.