<p>Prompt: Do changes that make our lives easier not necessarily make them better?</p>
<p>Changes that make daily lives for humans easier do not always make those lives easier. In The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, a house that eliminates all manuel chores ends up making a family’s lives harder. Because improvements to daily life often creates an increase in the quantity of free time at the expense of the quality of life, such changes do not make life better. Just as a fictional family switches to an automatic house in a Bradbury story, the human race switches to farming instead of hunting and faces similar outcomes.</p>
<p>Bradbury describes a new house in the future where all trivial tasks are completed automatically by robots leaving his fictional family chore-less. At first, the change seems like bliss and each individual’s life appears easier due to the lack of cleaning, cooking, etc. But, the family begins to become lazier and less amiable to each other because the house’s robots seem like much better companions. Eventually, the family realizes that the quality of their lives are now worse than they used to be even though they do have more free time. As underscored by Bradbury’s story, technology that alleviates lives do not always make the quality of life better. </p>
<p>During Prehistoric times, the human race survived by hunting and gathering for their food. Towards the end of this era, early humans made the switch to planting and farming. They had a significant amount of leisure time but archaeologists report a high amount of malnutrition and bone disease after the switch. The change to farming had brought an easier lifestyle but a more unhealthy one too as the planted crops were not as nutritious as the variety of nature’s plants. Again, the switch to a lifestyle with a higher quantity of free time is not better than a harder one with a better quality.</p>
<p>As show by these two examples, changes in our lives are not always better. An easier life sounds more appealing but people get out what they put in and when they put in less effort the quality of life decreases dramatically. Innovation can yield an improved quality of life, but let people be aware of never compromising the quality of life for more leisure time.</p>