Some people think that the increasing use of computers and mobiles phones in communication has negative effects on young people’s reading and writing skills. Agree or disagree.
It is true that high-tech gadgets such as computers or mobiles phones have become popular in our life. While I accept that these modern devices could cause some detrimental consequences to young people’s reading and writing capacity, I would argue that they have a largely positive impact on improving such skills.
On the one hand, there are many reasons why the over-dependence on modern communication devices would negatively affect youngsters’ writing and reading ability. Firstly, young people who send messages to others via applications such as facebook or skype usually abbreviate their words in order to communicate faster. Particularly, some software programs such as Microsoft Word offer users convenient functions that help correct grammatical mistakes automatically when composing text documents. Such habits could facilitate the way they interact, but impair their writing skills in the long term. Secondly, as youngsters now spend most of their time playing computer games or watching game shows on mobile phones, they do not have sufficient time for reading activities such as reading news or books. This lack of reading practices would obviously lead to poor reading competence.
On the other hand, I would argue that the proper use of computers and mobiles phones would significantly contribute to the improvement of reading and writing skills. Perhaps the first reason is that by using those devices with access to the Internet, users could get an unlimited source of information, ranging from news to novels whenever they want. For those who learn languages, technological devices are useful tools which allow them to form a good habit of daily reading and enrich their vocabularies. Another reason is that, with the development of social networking sites, people now can easily create blogs and express their thoughts. For example, some teenagers who frequently travel often update stories about natural scenery that they visited. By writing on a daily basis, their writing skills are certainly improved
In conclusion, it seems to me that the use of mobiles phones and computers could have both advantages and disadvantages for the reading and writing skills of the young generation, depending on the way they use.
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