IELTS Fluent · Cuối khoá · Writing: Household Spending and News on Social Media

The table illustrates how households in one country divided their monthly income between six categories in 1995, 2010 and 2025.

Overall, housing replaced food as the largest area of spending, while the share of income that households saved fell considerably. Spending on leisure and education rose gradually, whereas transport costs remained fairly stable.

In 1995, food accounted for the biggest proportion of household income, at 31%, followed by housing at 22% and savings at 21%. Over the next thirty years, however, the figure for food dropped steadily to 19%, while housing costs climbed to 34%, which was more than a third of the total. In fact, housing had already overtaken food by 2010, when the two figures stood at 27% and 24% respectively.

The proportion of income that was saved showed a similar downward trend to food, almost halving from 21% to 11%. By contrast, households spent more on both leisure and education, with the former rising from 8% to 12% and the latter almost doubling from 6% to 11%. Transport was the only category that changed very little, fluctuating between 12% and 14% throughout the period.

Nowadays, an increasing number of people, especially young adults, rely on social media rather than traditional newspapers or television for their news. In my view, this change is mainly caused by convenience and cost, and although it has some benefits, it is largely a negative development.

There are several reasons for this trend. First of all, social media is extremely convenient. Most people carry a smartphone everywhere, so they can check the latest news while waiting for a bus or during a coffee break, rather than waiting for the evening news on TV. Secondly, news on these platforms is usually free, whereas many newspapers now charge for subscriptions. Finally, social media allows users to comment on and share stories, which makes following the news feel more interactive.

Admittedly, this development has some positive aspects. Information spreads much faster than before, which can be extremely useful in emergencies such as storms or floods. It also gives ordinary people a chance to report events that professional journalists might ignore.

However, I believe the disadvantages are more serious. The biggest problem is the reliability of information. Unlike newspapers, which employ editors to check facts, social media posts can be published by anyone, so false stories often spread widely before they are corrected. Moreover, the algorithms used by these platforms tend to show users content that matches their existing opinions. As a result, people may only see one side of an issue and become less tolerant of different views.

In conclusion, people are turning to social media for news because it is fast, free and interactive. Despite its advantages in speed and openness, this trend is mostly negative, as it encourages the spread of misinformation and narrows people's perspectives.