Electric technology is reshaping and restructuring every aspect of our personal lives- This is proving to be harmful to society Against

Members of the floor, honourable opposition, judges, chairperson; I am here today to explain why electric technology is not proving to be harmful to society.

The advancement of electric technology has vastly improved living conditions; electricity is the foundation of economic and social development and is the lifeblood of modern society. The U.S. National Academy of Engineering identified societal electrification as the greatest engineering achievement of the 20thcentury. The Worldwatch Institute stated that modern energy sources provide people with lighting, heating, refrigeration, cooking, water pumping and other services that are essential for reducing poverty and improving the quality of our lives.

Women are disproportionately affected by energy poverty, but they are also major beneficiaries when it is alleviated. The maternal mortality ratio in China has dropped from 110 per 1000 live births to 32 in 2013. Today universal access to electricity has been achieved in China, allowing families to light their homes, refrigerate food and medicine, and reduces indoor air pollution through more efficient means of cooking.

My opposition has outlined negatives of our new age of social media, but I would like to explore how positive this new found way of communication is proving to be.

Emma Watson is a valued member of British culture and society, and has also used our new age of social media as an effective tool in the dissemination of information. In September 2014 she delivered an address at the UN Headquarters inNew York City,helping launch the UN Women campaignHeForShe, which calls for men to advocate for gender equality. The speech was widely circulated by social media, and has received more than 6 million views on YouTube. Since it was launched, more than 270,000 men have committed to the movement, and the HeForShe map records global engagement in the campaign, as well breaking down the information per country. Watson has also published posts to do with the campaign and her work as aUN WomenGoodwill Ambassador, to her 29.1 million Facebook fans. Without the rise and use of social media many would be unaware of such a campaign, and it would also prove much more difficult to know the amount of engagement in such a movement. However, thanks to websites and apps such as Facebook and Instagram, we can track those interested in such a cause, who can remain up to date with not only information, but also events and activities they can get involved in.

This elevates democratic movements to another level; the use of social media not only enables the dissemination of information in a much more up to date way, but it also means that any action taken on such information can be properly organised. We should look no further than the Occupy movement to see this in operation; activists have used web technologies and social media like Facebook,Twitter, andMeetupto coordinate events. Therefore, in its first event alone, on the 17th of September 2011, more than 2000 marchers were involved in the protestmovement inZuccotti Park, located inNew York City'sWall Streetfinancial district. By October 2012 there had been Occupy protests and occupations in dozens of other countries across every continent exceptAntarctica. Social media has enabled us, as a society, to better coordinate protests and engage in political movements, and also to utilise the democratic right to criticise the government, a right held by those who are lucky enough. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter have made such movements much easier to organise, but also much easier for authorities to track to ensure that such protests will be safe, and properly managed.

Another positive of the rise of social media is crowdfunding, whichis the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the internet. There are five types of crowdfunding; reward-based, equity crowdfunding, debt-based, litigation crowdfunding and charity work. Examples of successful crowdfunding range from the "Coolest" cooler which raised over $13,000,000 from over 62,000 backers to the recent example of aGoFundMe crowdfunding campaignto raise $250,000 for the family of Erica Morale, who gave birth to quadruplets before she passed away a few hours later. The money will be used to support the quadruplets father in bringing up the children.

Undoubtedly, the rise of social media has also seen a rise in activities of things such as terrorist recruitment online, but that is not the fault of electric technology; it is human use of such technologies that corrupt it. Also we cannot state that electric technology and social media has allowed such activity to occur, as terrorist attacks occurred long before the time of the instant message. The use of social media as a form of terrorist organisation has made the tracking of such information easier track, therefore easier to prevent and apprehend those who are a part of such a plan.

This motion is not only limited to the use of social media but the much more broad term of electric technology. Therefore, we must examine other aspects of electric technology, as Dominic has already done. On a very superficial level, without electric technology many sources of entertainment would not have been made vastly easier to produce, and this makes films and music much more accessible to everyone. This has made our society more able to engage with the culture of our time, especially as electric technology allows free tours of museums and art galleries, such as the National Gallery, online. Culture is no longer simply for the upper-classes, but instead allows participation for everyone, on a global scale.

I would like to finish with this; Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistaniactivistfor female educationand on the afternoon of the 9th October 2012, a gunman fired three shots at her. Since this assassination attempt she has gone on be the youngest-everNobel Prizelaureate, and was named as one of TIMEs 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013. I do not believe that she would have become a global icon for feminist activists without her presence on social media, which she had used in the most constructive way possible; she looks to promote a positive cause for the improved well-being of society, and it has enabled her to set up her charity The Malala Fund.

Thank you.

Scepticism about modernityis not new, of course; at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Luddites violently fought the new technology and less active types dreamt of a far more preferable, albeit imaginary, distant golden age, as they had since Roman times. Romantics such as William Blake fretted over the human costs of technological modernity and Marx, Engels, and other socialist revolutionaries, often drawing from the Christian utopian tradition, criticised the brutality of unrestricted factory capitalism and built their own mythological golden age in the future to come. I do not believe that rejecting electronic technology is in any way necessary; the overwhelming effects of such technology have proved to be incredibly positive; on a pragmatic level concerning our ability to survive and improvement in the quality of our personal lives, and also on a moral and social level, when talking about the constructive uses of social media in the dissemination of information.

Thank you.