Some people say that the increasing use of computers and mobile phones for communication has had a negative effect on young people’s reading and writing skills. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
There are those who opine that young people’s literacy skills have been detrimentally impacted due to their excessive reliance on electronic communication. Personally, I totally agree with this statement because opportunities are seldom provided for them to correct their mistakes and their exposure to informal language is excessive.
The primary reason supporting my stance is that young people are prevented from developing the ability to realise their spelling and grammatical mistakes. When they communicate via user-friendly devices, the advanced computer system will automatically give assistance by checking and correcting the mistakes made, resulting in these individuals never attaching importance to the errors at all. Thus, they will end up repeating the same mistakes and their reading and writing skills are threatened.
Another important point I consider relevant is that young people frequently use casual expressions on their computers and smart phones, including “CU29t”, “LoL” and “dunno”. Although this approach allows them to communicate with great convenience, they will gradually become accustomed to using these words. If they were required to generate some formal writing pieces, they would have difficulty accomplishing such tasks because of their inability to select appropriate vocabulary and sentence patterns.
In conclusion, I reiterated my complete approval of the idea that communication by using computers and mobiles poses a threat to young people’s writing and reading skills. For one thing, they do not know what spelling or grammar mistakes they are making and how to write appropriately. Therefore, it is suggested that the young not only enjoy the convenience brought by electronic communication but also spend time learning vocabulary and grammar rules as well as practising different writing genres.
(272 words)
