Topic: 163

I think that reading and writing is more important now than in the past. Many factors influenced to make the written expression more useful and necessary at present than in the past.

The world is changing. Information became essential, and the world is getting into a sort of communication age. A great part of this communication is written. The summary of the information, about the human knowledge, is written either in books or computer s files. Since ancient times, men and women devoted their lives to survive and fight against nature's limitations and dangers.

They had to discover a solution for each new problem, and this is the way the civilizations began. They developed the languages to transmit knowledge, and as a need. Consequently, they needed a way to communicate and file this pool of knowledge.

At first, to read and write was only a possibility to some whose activity required it, and it was restricted to privileged people who could afford it, or get it (because of the long distances, and the availability of teachers)

Now all has changed. Women were seen only as wives whose only work was at home, and as mothers whose life should be centered on the children's care. Today, not only read and write is essential, but also some computer skills (at least basic), among others, are seen as basic education.

There are thousands of examples, just to name some If you can't read, you could not get informed, and you can t even search for work. You could walk at the front of the windows of potential employers (who are usually asking for "help"), without notice; newspaper s adds offering jobs wouldn't be any more than paper for you. You could get irradiated inadvertently (even the information about the caution signaling, is written!).

You wouldn't even be able to visit a city without getting lost, otherwise you d have to ask people how to get everywhere. A funny proverb goes as follows "word contracts doesn't even worth the paper in which they're written", but you would never know what you are about to sign, except for what they say it says. And so on. All these situations were not so common in the past, villages were small, people trusted in other people's word, nobody traveled so much, and all knew their own town good enough. Dangerous situations were easy to recognize, unlike radioactivity, for example.

To conclude, for all the above reasons, I am convinced that read and write, is very very much important now than in the past. Otherwise I would not be here, it became so important that I have to learn how to read and write not only in my language but in a second language too. That's life (today)!