Some people think that the increasing use of computers and mobile phones for communication has a negative effect on young people’s reading and writing skills. Do you agree or disagree?
科技损害读写能力
Because of technology, communication has been made easier as people can contact one another through their cell phones or computers. Although this is generally a positive development, many people think that it has adversely affected the writing and reading skills of young people. That is a view I also believe.
Compared to the not-so-distant past when people read books and other printed materials to discover an answer, young people today opt for visuals to find out what they need to know, which is why their reading skills have suffered. Videos are often their first choice as they require less effort to digest. If no related videos are available, they search for easy-to-read articles that contain diagrams and illustrations for clarity. Many young people no longer have the patience for lengthy texts with no pictures, so their reading skills have severely degraded.
How young people write has also been badly affected. Though typing is required to send a text, private message, or email, the screen restrictions and messaging-on-the-go have given birth to a number of shortcuts. That is why many young people have difficulty spelling words now since they wrongly assumed the shortcuts were spelled correctly.
Also, it is a rarity for the youth to compose proper sentences and paragraphs because they got used to the short, informal messages on their phones and computers. All of these terrible writing models in their life have made writing very difficult for the young.
To conclude, though communication technology is generally beneficial, it has hurt the reading and writing skills of the young. Hopefully, parents and educators will soon recognize the urgency of this matter and find ways to correctly teach young people how to read and write.