Model answer
Written by 8020 teachers. Do not memorise it — take the structure and the way ideas are developed, then speak about your own life.
Q: In what ways has technology changed the way people communicate?
A: The obvious answer is speed — you can reach almost anyone instantly now, which simply wasn't possible a generation ago. But I think the more interesting change is in depth rather than speed: a lot of communication has become shorter and more frequent instead of longer and more considered. People send a dozen quick messages where they might once have written one proper letter or had one real conversation. There's also this odd effect where you can be in constant contact with someone and still feel like you don't actually know what's going on in their life, because the format encourages updates rather than reflection. So I'd say technology has made communication more available but not necessarily richer.
Q: Do you think social media brings people together or pushes them apart?
A: Honestly, I think it does both, and the answer depends heavily on how it's used rather than the technology itself. It's genuinely brought together people who'd otherwise have lost touch — old classmates, family members scattered across countries — so there's a real connective function there. At the same time, I've noticed it can replace the effort of maintaining relationships with the appearance of maintaining them; liking someone's post isn't the same as actually checking in on them. If anything, I'd say it widens the gap between people who use it to supplement real relationships and people who let it substitute for them.
Q: Should there be limits on how much time children spend online?
A: In principle, yes, though I think the conversation focuses too much on the number of hours and not enough on what those hours are spent doing. An hour of a child creating something or talking to friends is a very different thing from an hour scrolling passively, and treating them as equivalent misses the point. That said, children generally aren't in a position to self-regulate that distinction, so some external limit probably has to exist, whether from parents or the platforms themselves. I'd rather see the emphasis shift toward quality of use than a blanket cutoff.
Q: Do you think older and younger generations experience technology differently?
A: Very differently, and I think it comes down to whether technology feels like an addition to your life or the default environment you grew up in. For someone older, a new app is a tool you evaluate and decide whether to adopt; for someone who's grown up with a phone in hand, it's closer to a given, not really a choice at all. That changes the relationship — older generations tend to be a bit more suspicious of new technology and quicker to notice its downsides, while younger people are often less aware there was ever an alternative. I don't think either group is entirely right; the suspicion is useful, but so is the comfort.
Q: Is it possible to be too dependent on technology?
A: Definitely, and I think the clearest sign is when losing access to it, even briefly, feels genuinely disorienting rather than mildly inconvenient. A dead phone battery shouldn't really disrupt someone's whole day, but for a lot of people it does, which suggests the dependency runs deeper than just convenience. What complicates the question is that some of that dependency is actually rational — we've outsourced memory, navigation, and calculation to devices because they're better at it than we are. So the risk isn't dependency itself, it's dependency without any fallback ability underneath it.