You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Some people think that excessive use of smartphones badly affects teenagers’ literacy skills. Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

It is argued that overuse of smartphones has adverse effects on the literacy skills of adolescents. I feel this is true not just in the case of teenagers, but among all the age groups.

The first reason behind my agreement is because of the increasing time teenagers spend on smartphone activities. Studies show that 80% adolescents either look or urge to look at their smartphones every 15 minutes when they are awake. The same group is found to spend over 3 hours before bedtime with these gadgets. Unfortunately, this time is used to entertain themselves  and socialize in between rather than reading journals or listening to academic podcasts.

The second reason why I agree to the statement is because of the way which people, especially teenagers communicate on their smartphones. Instead of sending formal text messages, which was common when e-mails were popular, they send short codes, emojis , smileys and pictures. Today, most smartphones have a number of such facilities, which people of all ages are fond of when they text, not just the adolescents.

Finally, very few smartphone companies promote ways to enrich literacy skills among people.  These companies attract their potential customers, the teenagers, with features which makes their time elapse unproductively. I admit that there are some online applications which help improve language skills like spelling and grammar, however these features are least used by the adolescents.

To conclude, there is no doubt that the overuse of smartphones has detremental effects on the literacy skills of people, especially teenagers.