Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

The extended family(grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles) is less important now than it was in the past.

Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

I agree with the statement that the extended family is less important now than it was in the past. Back to last 1990s or even to 1940s where my grandparents have ever lived,  their lists of contacts was limited and they lived in a certain circle because of the undeveloped techonology. No phones, no trains, no ubiquitous chances, continual wars, and all of these make people live together, so there always be big family living in a house spending the harmonious time in Beijing quadrangle. But with time goes by, the connection between family is not frequent and the relationship is not close like they used to be.

Because of the development of  techonology and economy, chances for people can be seen eveywhere. Many people are more likely to make a living in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai instead of staying at their familiar hometown where there is no good prospects. Such a situation leads to families sepration, and maybe you can't have family reunions until one year or even several years, not to mention the extended family.

Besides, people's minds are modern. Now the couple would like to be more involved in children's life, so parents would choose to foster kids on their own even though they are not  better-off after they arrive in big cities. Therefore,kids are far away from their grandparents and other family members. And the basic communication with extended family is losing.

What's more, the hand-held devices which is more powerful than the super computer take over people's lives. When people came back to hometown after the whole year's hard working and hoped to sit down around the round table and talked about what have happened in the past year with their close relatives. But people prefers to pay attention to the colorful world in those devices and they even don't think about it.

People themselves don't ignore the connection with the extended family, instead, the mordern and last-developing society changed them.