HuiJun (how has new media changed our lives)

New media greatly affects our lives because it has the power to change and influence our thoughts. This is sometimes positive and sometimes negative. In the internet websites such as the facebook, Wikipedia and blogs, people are given the freedom of speech to voice out their opinion about anything and everything. For example, singapore’s most well-known blogger, Mr Brown, shot to fame during the elections with this riotously funny ‘tua kwa’ podcast.This podcast recorded an argument between a minced meat noodle seller and his customer over a botched order. It implicitly poke fun at the PAP. Mrbrown, with the help of media, changed his life and became a ‘voice’ representing Singaporeans in critising some of the government’s actions. Nevertheless, media brought about devastating harm, especially on youths. Youths spent most of their time on internet or gaming. They became engrossed in media and are ‘hooked’ onto it. For instance then-21-year-old Shawn Woolley played hours of the online game Everquest before fatally shooting himself while sitting in front of his computer. Media can distort the mind of consumers and sometimes confused them of the right and wrong.

Bao Lin/ mass media

New media such as the internet and technologies have changed our life for the better like reducing the need to spend time travelling to places to get information as people could easily get information by the internet. Things have become more convenient for the people, they could chat and keep friends updated online like ‘facebook’ and ‘twitter’. Thus, new media has changed the people to be better with technologies and to make use of the time reduce from travelling to better use like their work. Therefore, new media have changed our life for the better.
New media might cause the people to be lazier due to the conveniences brought to the people through technologies and they might not want to go out. However, this is not true for all people.

Hwee Ling/ How has new media changed our lives?

New media has changed our perspective on how we see things. In the past, most people were more conservative. As time passes, people are exposed to many more things through mass media. As a result, majority of the people are getting more and more open-minded. Things that were not spoken about in the public can become the hot topics. For example, things like pre-marital sex are not brought up in the past. However, with the influence of mass media, schools now educate students about pre-marital sex. This, in a way, is good as it teaches students the harmful consequences of pre-marital sex and allows them to think before making the wrong move and regret later on. Thus, new media has changed our lives for the better in this aspect.

Ong Mei Ting/Have new media change our lives for the better?

New media do change our lives for the better because it provides convenience to people who are affected by it. An example would be the usage of Windows messenger through the Internet, in which allowing conversation to occur between two parties at different places. By doing so, this allows us to communicate easily without having the trouble of meeting up. This has changed our lives for the better because it would save us the extra effort to meet up. Moreover, this allows information to be carried across two parties. Hence, new media has changed our lives for the better through the convenience it has provided. However, this may lead to the change in the relationship between close friends. As internet has become the medium to enable us to have convenience, this would mean that they would be able to play games and chat over the internet. This would result in friends being the same as strangers the have known through the internet. Despite, the fact that this may happen, it would be unwise to make such conclusion because they are still able to meet in other placessuch as their worklace or institutes.Therefore, new media has changed our lives for the better through the convenience it brings.

Doreen/ new media

The new media has brought entertaining and fascinating gadgets into our lifestyles. Since the emergence of the new media, we have observed the birth of high-tech gadgets built with the fusion of technology and traditional media. From the creation of disc-man to MP3 to even iPhone with the all-built in features which satisfy anything a human wants, we could say that new media indeed has brought amazement and improve our lifes by allowing media to reach us easily. For instance, iPhone which was created by Apple Company has amalgamated the functions of media player, in-built camera, communicating tools like SMS and calls, games and applications and even the Wifi which traditionally only a computer is able to access. When one gets bored, he or she can easy access the games and start hooking up to them. These intervention of new media has brought convenience and has significantly reduce the trouble of us having to find leisure through traditional means like going to the arcade to compete in a game of wrestling. However, debates and controversies have sparked off from the development of these high tech gadgets. These high tech gadgets has succeeded in transforming human into one that is filled with complacancies and demand. Piracy has also been invaded when technology improves. People can easy download songs or videos with a click on their computer or phone without patronizing authentic music stores. These has led to music artistes and businessmen losing their hope of livelihood. Thus, although the new media has brought such convenience to us, it has also led to the downfall of authentic and conventional ways of living.

Azizah new media

New media has become a very powerful tool in the spreading and gathering of information worldwide, introducing foreign cultures to locals and inevitably, making the world more connected than before. On a global level, new media has been responsible in providing a more efficient and effective medium for people to get connected and be well-informed about issues concerning other countries or nations, which may not be easily accessible without new media such as the internet. With new media, our perspectives on world issues have broaden as different people and countries are able to spread their opinions to other parts of the world. People also have become more aware of the problems faced by other people as new media is able to publish advertisements or aid campaign online to raise awareness. Such campaign is Oxfam, which has online forum.

Before being widely-used, we could only rely on conventional media tools such as television, radio and print media. Although these have served to be reliable sources of information, it is not sufficient to keep up with the constant happenings in the world, hence such news and information lack attention and publicity. With the advent of new media, there are so many sources we could turn to such as online forums and news, Youtube and even social networking sites. People use such mediums to spread messages and create petitions on certain issues. Therefore, new media is beneficial to us in terms of efficacy in making issues known.

Ng Zeng Woon/ Has the new media changed our lives for the better?

New media has changed our lives for the better as it can be seen as an educational tool with benefits. Society has progressed a lot, and so do advances in technology. Given the apparent high state of technology that we can’t live without today, it is not hard at all for anyone to employ new media as means for their education. Information is available at their fingertips and with such apparent ease, which makes teaching much easier as well. For instance, schools nowadays are tapping into new media, using it as a way to teach their students better. Given the technological adeptness of students today, it will not be difficult for them to easily retrieve information from new media in which they can use for their assignments and projects. Also it paves the way for more interactive teaching, moving away from the more conventional “textbook” approach to education. By improving the way in which we are educated today, it is not hard to argue that new media has indeed changed our lives for the better.

Esmond Lam/ Have the new media changed our lives for the better.

I feel that new media has changed our lives for the better. With advanced technology in the modern world, it has given birth to new media such as the internet. New media has allowed us to be more well-informed of occurrences in our world. With the internet, one can instantaneously connect with the world with only a few clicks on the mouse. Also, we can browse for information on the internet, allowing us to do research conveniently. Before the birth of new media, people get news from newspapers, radios etc. However, with the invention of the television and the internet, one can efficiently obtain the same information without much effort. For example, there is the Straits Times Online on the internet to allow people stay informed even without reading the newspapers. For example, communication between people all over the world has been increased with the rise of new media. We have been able to speed up our pace of life ever since new media is discovered. Hence, new media has effectively allowed us to obtain information more efficiently and so I feel that new media has indeed changed our lives for the better.

Alynna/ Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

Not only have the new media not change our lives for the better, it has left a negative impact on our lives today. The advancement of technology has undeniably benefitted many- whether it is the convenience of online-shopping, or being able to connect with anyone with just a click of the mouse. However, this connectivity with the world has caused an invasion of our privacy. Facebook, now one of the world’s largest networking site, has recently introduced the “news feed” feature onto their website- publishing Facebook users’ each and every move. Now, everyone’s actions are exposed and subjected to public scrutiny, with no room left for censorship. Many are outraged at their lack of rights to choose what should or should not be published and left out in the open to the public view, but have no say in this. Before all these technological improvements per se, people are selective in portraying certain information to certain people, keeping their private lives to themselves, having part of their daily lives kept unknown to the rest of the cyber world. Yes, others may argue that signing up for a social networking site is a personal choice, and that the consequences of online profiling are inevitably brought upon ourselves. However, have we not considered that some may have signed up for the sole purpose of “reconnecting” with their friends, which was, ironically, the initial purpose of the creators of Facebook? Do we lose our privacy rights just because we have no choice but to?

RABIA-how has new media changed our lives?

New media is a term used to represent the amalgamation of traditional media such as image,music with the interactive power of computer and communication technology.What differentiates new media from old media is that consumers can actively participate in it.We vastly experience many instances of new media around us in our daily lives.As a result,our social lives have dramatically changed.For example,Facebook is such an interactive media online site that combines words,images together with the communicating purpose in the computer that enables users to respond to whats being posted and also interact with each other while being online.This has definitely improved the social connectivity between everyone and also enable everyone to know what has been happening around them.People do not need to make the effort to call up or meet up with someone to catch up with them and instead can rely on new media to do the work.Thus,the new media has greatly impacted our social lives

benjamin xD new media

New media has changed our life for the worst as it has caused many of us living each day worrying. Terrorists had been effective to use the internet for their use to spread their hatred of those people who are not Islam and want to clean the world to become a world with Islam as the only religion. This had been the reason why there are so many Muslim teenagers in countries, like USA or Spain, are influenced to become a terrorists. This is a major problem in many societies, with the increase of terrorists attack in the various societies, how can we live in peace. We have to worry daily whether will we be killed by terrorists today? How can our life be better when there we have to live each day worrying? This is seen as such our life is not better with the new media. But yet this is so, such website can be censored and regulated to prevent people from entering it. Also, this applies to some country and not for all. New media has caused us to live a life worrying each day. So new media is not good to our life

xD

YuFan/ Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

New media has changed our lives for the better.Our lives have changed in the way we communicate with each other. It makes us become people who interact better on screen than face to face. Our ability to type becomes slightly better than our speech ability. Before the appearance of new media, we communicate through talking face to face, and using the telephone. With new media, we are able to communicate with each other through blogs, msn messenger, twitter, facebook etc. In this way, we can spare the trouble of calling each other or even meeting up, just to convey a simple message. Microsoft has shared some Windows Live Messenger stats, confirming that more than 300 million people in 76 countries and 48 languages use Messenger every month. There are 250 million people using facebook. This shows the large number of people using online chatting instead of speaking face to face. I would agree that new media as changed our lives for the better as it spares us the trouble of calling and finding each other just to convey a simple message.

[Pei ling] new media

New media is defined as interactive digital media, such as the Internet, as opposed to traditional media such as print and television.

New media has changed our learning. Before new media was available, there was only classroom learning which was boring and non-interactive and unresponsive to the students’ interests. Teachers had to struggle to get their students to learn through the boring lessons. When new media was available, interactive games or websites were created to help the students learn. The games or websites, which were more interesting and interactive, helped students to be more interested in the topics they are learning and enable them to learn more. New media allows learning to be fun and interesting, changing our lives for the better.

Gladys/ Have the new media changed our lives for the better? (vjc/2007/jc2/ct)

I agree that with the birth of new media, it has brought about improvements about our lives. New media encompasses the internet. The internet has brought about much convenience in our lives, with billions of information at our fingertips with just the click of the mouse. This has enabled us to save much precious time when it comes to researching for information. Contrasting to internet’s predecessor, books, the internet has shortened the time taken to laboriously research for information. In the past, libraries were flocked by students to conduct research, making it inconvenient as well as time consuming. However, with the birth of new media, it has enabled people to conduct research at anytime, so long as they have the access to internet. Hence, it has brought about much improvements to our lives.

Pamela/Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

I would believe that the new media has changed our lives for the better. The media has allowed us to know more about foreign cultures by overcoming the physical barriers. It has helped the world be more connected through globalization. Through the internet or television we are able to see how someone living on the other side of the planet lives like. With access to such information we are better able to understand their way of life, their social ethics, and their beliefs and many other things. Through these improved means we are able to see the world from the comfort of our homes. Through, we can visit the world with our eyes. One other way in which the new media has brought great assistance is by spreading the knowledge of foreign cultures, it will ease culture shock and at the same time prevent misunderstandings due to ignorance of foreign culture, making vacations more enjoyable. Some good examples in which the new media has helped closed the country gaps would be the introduction of then television channels national geographic and national history. These channels provide interesting information about foreign cultures. There is much to learn and much to appreciate. Thus I feel that by allowing us to see the world easily, we now have greater knowledge, changing our lives for the better.

Jolene/Have new media changed our lives for the better?

New media has indeed changed lives for the better mainly in terms of convenience sake. In the past, where there was never media, the lives of people were really tough as it was hard for them to acquire basic information or to even contact anybody in the shortest time. With new media, things like the internet have actually helped to improve the lives of many because the internet is a really powerful gadget that transfers, conveys and spreads messages across the whole world. In terms of convenience, the internet actually covers a whole wide range of areas. For example, there had been a decreasing demand for newspapers among the people these days because the same news will be posted up on websites and will be easily accessible for the people to read. Also, businessmen relies on the internet a lot because it helps them to clinch their deals faster and better through emails or through websites that allows their customers to know more about them. With new media, everything is very convenient, from researching for a project, getting to know someone better by emailing, instant messaging, blogs and vlogs, providing information for others and have also eased the burden of teachers as they can now upload their teachings on the internet so that students can carry out E-learning on their own. Thus, without new media, our lives would be rather stagnant, with no entertainment, no ways to reach others as fast as possible and even no ways to get information as fast as the internet can provide.

Chermaine/ Have the new media changed our lives for the better?

New media have indeed changed our lives for the better. It brought about improvements in our lives in the sense that it has “shrunk” our world, bringing us closer to the rest of the world. Through new media, we are able to have access to information about the rest of the world very easily. All we have to do is to go on the internet and we will be able to get the information that we want. This has brought about the increase knowledge in foreign culture which is good for us to be able to know what is happening around in the world instead of confining ourselves to only our country. We are able to get information through the new media about any disasters or dangers coming our way. It serves as a faster way of communication to allow faster transfer of information from one source to another as well as from one place to another. With the increase in rate of communication brought about by new media, our lives are improved as we will be able to spend less time to get our information transferred and it is definitely helpful especially in a new globalizing world whereby the lives of people are rather fast-paced. E-mails, msn messenger these are examples of new media’s communication tools. It allows people from different parts of the world to communicate with each other efficiently and effectively. Hence, with the new media allow better excess of information from other countries and faster rate of communication, it has brought about better changes in our lives.

Ong Mei Ting/To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore may be a family-friendly society because the government implements schemes to help families. One way would be aiding families financially through schemes such as Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) scheme. This helps families with lesser incomes to give education to their children as the education costs increases. However, this may not necessary prove that Singapore is a family friendly society because not all families would be able to benefit from it. An example would be the FAS scheme because rich families may not be able to apply from the scheme. Hence, Singapore is not a family friendly society as only a small proportion of the society can be benefitted from the scheme due to the small proportion of low income families in Singapore.

Jia Yu/ To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society? (mjc/2997/jc1/mye)

Singapore is a family- friendly country because the government has implemented policies to encourage family bonding. One of the policies is the five- days work week. This is to encourage people to spend time with their families during the weekends. In a fast paced society, family members are busy with their work and often neglect each other. Through this policy, they can use these two days to spend time with their members and find out more about their lives. This help to improve the bond with their members. However, this policy is not applicable to all the workers, especially those who are in service sectors. People who have high ranked positions in multinational companies may also unable to spend time with family members as their schedules are often packed and have to travel frequently. Since these people are unable to spend time with their members, their bonds may not be close. This shows that Singapore is still not a family-friendly country since it does not benefit all the people.

Esmond Lam : To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

In Singapore, the government encourages family bonding. They encourage families in Singapore to get together more often in the hope of fostering stronger ties in the families. The society should be family-friendly as this will provide room for family members to know each other better, and prevent generation gaps from forming. For example, there is an event known as the National Family Celebrations held annually in Singapore that aims to get families together. It encourages Singaporeans to take time off their busy schedules to enjoy a day out with their families at their own time, and own target. However, not all families in Singapore will go for such events as some may not be interested, whereas some may just think that such events are meaningless. This is because there may be already generation gaps in these families. Hence, if the response to these events is limited, they should not be held too often to prevent the wastage of resources. Hence, though family bonding events do indeed help foster stronger ties in families, there are still limitations that reduces the effectiveness of such events.

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society

Families provide the basic foundation for a strong society.Thus when Singapore is family-friendly,the society is strengthened,rising it up to a resilient country.Realising the importance of family friendliness,policies are implemented by the Singapore government to promote a family-friendly society.For example,there is a 5-day work policy currently being implemented.This policy enables the civil servants to work during the weekdays and have a break on their weekends.As a result,they are able to spend time with their family to do various activities that would allow family bonding.However,these policies do not serve their purpose when families do not know their work-life balance.In order to finish up their work,many would bring their workload to their homes.As a result,its merely changing the place of work from office to home.Parents would eventually be still busy and overwhelmed with work to go out and bond with their families.Moreover,teenagers would not be willing to spend time with their families and rather go out with their friends.

Hwee Ling/ To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

I agree to a large extent that Singapore is a family friendly society. Being a family-friendly society, it means to have taken family into considerations in the public which allows convenience for families especially with young children. One example is that in almost all shopping centres’ toilets, there are children toilets, baby changing and feeding room and even a small boy cubical in a female toilet. These create much convenience for mothers to bring their young kids out as they do not have to worry about their children when they want to visit the restaurant . In some cases, there are in childcare centres in malls that allow mothers to shop and relax in ease as they know that their children are in good hands. These environments help to promote Singapore to be a family-friendly society. Not only had the environment, Singapore also organized various family activities to build cohesive family bond. However, there should be a limit to what the socity provides for families to prevent families from treating public places as their homes.

Ng Zeng Woon/ To what extent does the state have a right to montior the actions of the people within their borders?

In my personal opinion, I feel that the state has a right to monitor the actions of its people within its borders as it will help to safe guard the interests of the state, not just that of the people. Some of the actions of the people in a country may be beneficial but it does not mean that majority of the actions are beneficial to the state. There may be a few individuals or groups however whose actions may be harmful to the state in terms of state welfare and national security. These actions can range from acts of racism, which can lead to racial tensions and racial riots, to the more harmful effects of loss of life and infrastructure through terrorism. As such, the state would need to monitor the actions of such individuals or groups not just to effectively prevent them from causing any harm to the interests of the state but also it could pose as a deterrence to others who have similar intentions. This will help ensure that the interests of the people within the state’s jurisdiction are not damaged. However, there are flaws in this view as the extent to which the state monitors the actions of their people within its borders could vary from country to countries. This difference in extent of surveillance may infringe the people’s rights to privacy which can be seriously affected. Some countries like those in despotic regimes will monitor their people’s actions greatly in order to seek out those who pose a threat to their governance. For instance, in the now defunct Soviet Union, under the Communist regime of Stalin, the people who opposed Stalin’s rule had a very high chance of being murdered by members of the KGB, Stalin’s secret police. Also the KGB frequently monitors the actions of the people in the Soviet Union till the extent that everyone feared for their lives as anything that they say could ultimately lead to their deaths.

Azizah evaluative paragraph

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore can be considered a family-friendly society as long as it promotes the strengthening of family ties within the community. For example, events such as family day organized by companies or workshops that targets families have become a common thing is Singapore and the response received from the people can be said to be encouraging. To be a family-friendly society, it could mean that the society itself is putting in the effort in conveying the message of the importance of strong family foundation to others and that the society also welcomes the effort presented to them in various ways such as the workshops and organized family outings. The responses from the society could indicate the their willingness to be involved in such family-oriented activities, therefore showing that Singapore society is indeed a family-friendly society. However, we also cannot overlook the trend of the elderly being left behind at welfare homes, most times by their own children. This has been a worrying issue that the country is facing. The society is dealing with the misconception that sending the elderly parents to the welfare homes is an immediate solution to the children’s financial and social burden.

Bao Lin/ To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

I agree that Singapore is a family-friendly society because it has given the people some benefit or help through policies as long as there are no punishments for people who do not follow the policies. For example, Singapore have given people maternity leave of around twelve weeks and five work days policy to promote people to spend more time with their family and start building up their family. This will then promote people to settle down and have more children to increase the workforce of the future so the society would not have an aging population. People who have taken care of their elderly and have more children will have some incentives like tax reliefs and subsidies. Singapore has been promoting the people to spend more time with their time and to balance their work and family. However, it is unacceptable when it start punishing the people who do not follow the policies that promote family-friendly. Therefore, Singapore is a family-friendly society as long as it did not punish people if they have not followed the policies.

Gladys/How far should a state have a right to monitor the actions of people within its borders?(gce/2007)

The state should have the right to monitor the actions of the people within its borders when these actions have an impact on society and the general well being of the country to a large extent. This is so as to protect the interests of the country. For example, the Singapore government makes it compulsory for all newborns to be vaccinated against tuberculosis and hepatitis B. The government makes it compulsory for the newborns to be vaccinated and the parents and the newborns are monitored closely by the government and relevant officials to ensure that the vaccinations are carried out. Without vaccination against such diseases, the disease will be rampant and hence, the government will then have to use much money in terms of health subsidies to cure such diseases. This may adversely affect the country economically when such money can be better utilized. Therefore the government should have the right to monitor the actions of the people within its borders when these actions affect the society to a large scale. However, some may argue that their actions do not adversely impact the society to a large scale by stating that it is difficult to determine whether their actions are detrimental to the society to a large extent. They might then say that the government is being authoritarian when they keep monitoring the peoples’ actions. For example, the government in Singapore makes it mandatory for all school going students to be vaccinated. This may come across as “forcing” the children to take the vaccinations as they may feel that one person not taking the vaccination is not of a big impact to society.

Pamela/To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore is family-friendly society as the government implements policies to ensure the cohesion of families. The Singapore government encourages its citizens to have a well-balanced lifestyle, striking a balance in time allocation between work and family. As globalization has hastened the pace of life, there is often little or no time for working adults to spend time with their families. This leads to a reduction of interactions between parent and child, which subsequently may lead to more disputes in a family due to a lack of understanding for one another. Thus, to ensure the cohesion in a family, the government has been seen increasing efforts to improve this situation. One such example is the “five-day work week ” policy. As the phrase says, this policy aims to encourage families and students to confine their respective activities to 5 days of a week. As such, they will be able to set aside more time for quality interactions. This will improve family relations and cohesion within the family. Such a policy shows that Singapore is a family-friendly society. However, we must not forget that while the official working hours are kept within these 5 days, very often an additional workload comes into the picture. Working adults bring their work home. Students are given weekend homework. If they are required to complete their tasks during their “ free time”, would it make any difference when they still busy at home with the same tasks? Thus, while family-friendly policies being implemented, Singaporeans do not fully appreciate this.

Yu Fan- Family, Marriage and Gender Roles

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore in some point in time might not be family-friendly society in terms of their working hours. Society should be family-friendly as many if not everyone have a family of their own. They are mostly family oriented; many have the power to live because they have their families with them. Some families have parents working till late night. People in the service industries would have to work from 10am to 10pm. The long hours prevent interaction between the child and their parents. The time when parents return home, the child would have fallen asleep. This is one case where Singapore is not a family-friendly society as it reduces interaction within families. However, Singapore government as also implemented policies to curb this problem. Instead of having a 12 weeks maternity leave, it has been extended to a longer period of 16 weeks, for mothers of Singapore citizens children. During the early years of a child’s growth, the accompaniment of a parent is more important than in later years. The government allows mothers to spend longer time with their child in the early years so as to help them build a stronger relationship. The government makes up for the dark side of work by implementing a longer maternity leave, so as to build a family-friendly society. In this way, Singapore has become a more family-friendly society as it cares for the welfare and interaction between each individual and their families.

evaluative ques-how far is singapore a family friendly society :D by benjamin yong 10s416

Singapore is not seen as family friendly society as there are lots of things that are not pro-family in the policy that the government has passed down. This can be seen by the building of the two integrated resort to attract tourist to Singapore so that we can earn more revenue. But this had caused a major problem to family in Singapore. By building of the integrated resort, there will be more family which will break up as a result of things like their spouse are addicted to gambling or even had gambled to the extent that the family are in a state of bankruptcy. This is seen as not pro-family. Pro-family should be one which helped the family to promote strong relationship. This is seen that the building of the integrated resort is not family friendly as it breaks up family and not builds up one. However in contrast, the government had set policies which are pro family. This includes the five day work week where everyone is allowed to work for five days and the weekends are to be used at home with their family. This can be seen as one which allow the family to build up as these weekends can be used to spend with their family and enjoy their weekend. Even the most recent, eat with your family day which government encourage family member to go home early to have a meal with their family. Signed up organization and civil servant will be released at 5 to go home. The pro-family policies are more common in Singapore than non pro-family. Thus, I will still say Singapore is still family friendly.

Syahirah - Family, Marriage & Gender Roles

Question: To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?


The Singapore government supports families in having more children. It justifies the rearing of children as a wonderful and blissful experience. Also, it believes that a family is incomplete without the presence of couples' young ones. As such, to encourage couples to start a family and have more children, pro-family policies are implemented. For an instance, a baby bonus scheme is introduced whereby a lump sum of money is given to the family when their first and subsequent child are born. The amount of money given is meant to support the high cost of rearing children in Singapore. Thus, it is true that the Singapore society is a family-friendly one as the government encourages its citizens to have larger family by showing its support giving monetary benefits. However, this is only so in situations when the birth rate in Singapore is not at a replacement level. Therefore, it is necessary for the government to take actions in bringing up the birth rate in Singapore. This is because with very low birth rate, it means that in the near future, there will be a larger proportion of the elderly as compared to the working population. As such, this is detrimental to the government because the economic progress is not maximised due to the small ratio of working population contributing to the economy. Therefore, it is evident that Singaporeans do not support family completely.

Chermaine/To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore is a family-friendly society as the government have implemented policies to promote better family lives. Family lives have been improved by allowing families to spend more time together. Singapore can be seen as a family-friendly society due to the numerous measures that the government take to allow family members to spend more time together. An example would be the new implementation of the ‘five day work week’ . Civil servants only have to work for five days in a week, having Saturday and Sunday as a rest day for them to be able to spend more time with their families on the weekends.In schools, ‘five day work week’ has also been implemented to allow students and working stuff to have the weekends to spend more time with their families. Family day , whereby the whole family get together for a day to enjoy all kinds of activities together to forge closer family ties have also been introduced in Singapore so as to have better family lives. However, Singapore might also not be a family-friendly society as the standard of living is rather high in Singapore. This therefore discourages more people to give birth or even start a family. According to the latest survey by Economist Intelligence Unit in March 2009, Singapore is one of the most expensive cities in the world, moving up five positions to 10th place. Hence, with high living expenses, people are more worried that they will not be able to support a family least say raising a child. Therefore, less people will be willing to start up a family and hence, Singapore might not be a family-friendly society.

To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

An apparent sign of singapore being a family-friendly society would be that families are encouraged to interact in a healthy manner with their valued members, all of course with implementation of policies to curb the problem of lack of communications within family members. As Singapore works towards greater prosperity and development, two working parents form the majority of Singapore's family structure rather than the much conventional sole-bread winner way of earning for the family. This would mean that a large time of the single member of the family would be spent out of their family boundary. To reduce the limiting time factor of interaction between families, the government has come up with measures and policies to curb this problem. The " Eat with your family day " is one policy that the government implemented to beef up communication between family members, which takes place every year in one of the designated Fridays in May. Families are to go home early for dinner. Also, the " Five day week work " policy are aimed to promote families getting together in weekends. However, although time are given to families to interact with each other, some of the family members may not value the importance of being with the family and may choose to prioritize other events. For instance, although the the Eat with your family day has been implemented, not every family has taken part in this event, which goes to show how much some value kinship. Singaporeans have a choice to take part in such event or not, which further limit the effectiveness of such policies. Thus, although there are policies to strengthen family ties, limitations still stand.

Alynna /To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

In conjunction with encouraging procreation and starting a family, the Singapore government has implemented a “Five Day Work Week” policy, which enables working adults- parents, in this context, to enjoy a work-life balance. In the past, working overtime and even during the weekends are not uncommon. Having spent a large proportion of their time working, parents are unable to churn out more, or even enough time for leisure, much less spending it with their children. Since the implementation of this policy, the adult workforce now has the weekends, free from all workload, to spend time with their family, fostering stronger family values and ties. As the saying goes, blood is thicker than water. The importance of a family can never be stressed enough. It is a relationship that can never be broken and a fortress to protect one from the outside world, which many seek comfort in knowing that they have that sea of familiar faces to turn to. A family is one that has to be together. Without a pro-family society, families may be broken and torn apart. However, if a family is bonded enough, regardless of whether they live in a family-friendly society or not, nothing should impair this relationship. Living in a family-friendly society is merely an incentive for those who wish to start a family, but does not determine the success of a family.

Jolene/ To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore has only become a family-friendly society in the recent years because it has been facing declining birth rates and there was a need to help boost the population of the country. Thus, Singapore is family-friendly only to a certain extent. Singapore was in need of their most important resource, manpower, and many pro-family policies have been implemented just to help increase fertility rates and to improve the relationships of families. For example, the "Baby Bonus Scheme" was first introduced to the citizens so as to encourage them to have more babies as the government will provide financial assistance and lessen the financial burden that parents might carry. Also, the “Five Days Work a Week” policy was also implemented so that parents will be able to spend more time with their families during the weekends and help to bond families closer. However, no matter how family-friendly Singapore is, citizens might not appreciate it and will not even feel encouraged to have a larger family or might be too busy to spend time with their families even with the “Five Days Work a Week” scheme. Singapore is a country with very high living standards and citizens there live fast-paced lives. Adults would be extremely busy and will have to work overtime. Even with all the policies made in the society, the lives that the citizens have been living will not easily succumb to the policies made. No matter how much the government subsidizes the people, people will naturally consider more about the long term financial burden they have to carry rather than just short term. Therefore, Singapore may be family-friendly in providing policies to encourage the people, it may not be very effective and Singapore might only be family-friendly to a certain extent.

[Pei ling] To what extent is Singapore a family-friendly society?

Singapore is a family-friendly society as the government actively encourages the early setting up of families and couples to give birth to more children. In light of such attitudes, the Third Child Priority Scheme and Conversion Scheme are among the many which families can benefit from. The Third Child Priority Scheme gave priority to families with a third or fourth child in obtaining a bigger apartment, and the Conversion Scheme allowed big families to buy an adjoining apartment to convert into a single larger unit. The most recent policy changes also include that young couples buying an apartment can now pay the down-payment in two stages. Also, the government has implemented a CPF family housing grant of $30,000, to help out couples from the start. With the recent policy ch angedimplemented, couples have more incentives to start a family on their own as the apartment now is much more affordable. Existing family also now can expand their family with no worries as they can all stay together because of the Third Child Priority Scheme. The Conversion Scheme promotes close knit family bonding as all the three generations of a family can stay together under one roof.

However, all these housing schemes is only useful in the short run. Having more children is expensive in the long run, especially when all the education costs kick in. Tax benefits or monetary assistance will a better family-friendly policy as it helps the family more in the long run. For example, in 2010, Australia introduced a Family Tax Benefit Scheme which helps family with the cost of raising children. The amount of Family Tax Benefit a family gets paid depends on the number and ages of the children. The amount of money a family gets paid reduces as the child grows older. This scheme is much more beneficial to families considering to have more children. Singapore is trying to be family friendly but not family friendly enough.

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Low birth rates in Singapore may be linked to lack of gender equity

benjamin yong/ :D women shouldnt run wallstreet

the mainpoint of the author are

1. there should be gender balance in the working world

2. it is more of a good than a bad to the society

3. women should run wall street as the reverse is true.

I totally agree the author point of view that women should be given greater leadership role.This can be seen by the fact that many country are having women president or prime minister. This includes the nearest to us, Philipine. We see that the country did not collapse under her hand.... :D

“I don’t think they would look out for me,” she said. “I have to look out for me.”

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