A person’s worth nowadays seems to be judged according to social status and material possessions. Old-fashioned values, such as honour, kindness and trust, no longer seem important.To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?Give reasons for

Over recent years, our society has evolved into a material one. As far as I am concerned, there is a shared feeling that the more possessions people have, the more important role they play in the society. Hence, it seems that personal values such as kindness, trust and honour no longer exist in our society.

Advertisements and social media have influenced us in a very bad way, as we feel the need of being constantly purchasing new items. Hence, we tend to squander our money very easily because, unfortunately, we truly believe the messages that commercials tell us. Therefore, we have become "shopaholics" and we no longer think twice if we really need the product that we are about to buy or not. Moreover, celebrities not only play an important role in our lives, because we want to act and live like them, but also we are constantly comparing our material possessions with the ones that have the people that surrounds us. In addition, we don't give to relationships the importance that they deserve because we are only worried about meeting people with lots of money and personal possessions, instead of bearing in mind if they are good people or if they can provide us with positive feelings. This is because many people harbour a direct association between material possessions, friends and social status.

Luckily, not all the people with material possessions are meant to be unfriendly and insensible. Recently, there have been several cases in the newspapers of rich or influential people giving aids to poor or unsuccessful ones. For instance, Bill Gates, the richest man on the world, gave millions of dollars to the victims of the earthquake that struck Nepal nearly two months ago. Simultaneously, a couple of days ago, I read on the Internet that an Arabic sheik was going to give one-quarter of his fortune to all the NGO's that pursue the aim of helping poor people living in slums or detrimental areas. These examples, though, highlight that material possessions and social status are not fallen out with personal values.

All in all, I believe that our society has changed drastically because we only give importance to material items that allow us to show off in front of others. We really need to change our behaviour and the way we understand wealth and social status because our personal values stay with us forever, but our material possessions someday will disappear.