▶ Your Answer :
People
today live in an ever-changing world. People tend to read and write information
relentlessly. Some might say that knowing how to read and write is more
important now than it has ever been. In my opinion, however, knowing how to
read write was more important in the past than now. This is mainly because, in
the past, sign language and visual media were not developed like
today.
First of
all, there was no sign language before then. This is attributable to the fact
that reading or writing was the only way for people who have hearing disorder to gain
knowledge or express their thoughts and ideas. Nowadays, thanks to the development
of sign language, it became possible for those disabled people to communicate
with others by using sign language. A statistical study conducted by the Korean
government revealed that the number of people who are capable of using sign
language have been increased by 10% compared to that of people 5 years ago. This
demonstrates that an auxiliary way for reading and writing to communicate with
people are being developed making abilities to read and write less crucial in this
contemporary society.
Secondly,
visual media were not developed like these days in the past. This is due to the
fact that there are lots of instructive and informative video clips in the
Internet. That is, it became possible for people to learn what ever they want
by watching video clips in the Internet. For example, a famous website,
YouTube, provides variety of useful video clips. In my experience, I learned how
to play guitar by watching videos at YouTube instead of reading a book. I
didn’t know a single cord of a guitar before watching those videos, but now I can
play guitar like one of the pro guitarists. Conversely, I also can upload video
clips to share information with people. These indicate that, unlike the past, it
has now become possible for people to share information by using visual media on
the Internet.
In summary,
many alternatives have been developed which can replace the function of reading
and writing. In this regard, I believe a person’s ability to read and write in
these days is not as important as that of a person in the past. |