TOEFL Independent-Technology lessens children's creativity. Do you agree or disagree?

Do you agree or disagree: Technology has made children less creative than they were in the past. support your answer with reasons and examples.

There is no doubt that technology advances have extensive effects on human life. It affects on both children and adults behavior as well. This often brings up a controversial question: How does technology affect the children's creativity? In this regard, some people are inclined toward the opinion that technology has made children to lose their creativity in comparison to the past whereas others hold exactly the opposite perspective, believing that technology has developed creativity in children. The way I see it, technology positively influences children and increases their creativity and innovation since it provides diverse information very quickly for everybody and helps to improve the skills. In the following paragraphs, I will elaborate on my perspectives for positive effect of technology on children's creativity.

The first reason that immediately comes to mind is that technology advances helps children to gain different knowledge in a short time. That is to say, technology has increased the operation and work speed so that everyone can obtain diverse information in the same breath and then use it to develop the technology. This loop runs with lots of positive effects on children's creativity. An important factor that improves creativity is knowledge. Children attain the knowledge and use it to create new ideas to solve the problems that they have encountered. Therefore, children improve their creativity by gaining the information very quickly.

As mentioned in the last paragraph, children gain their knowledge very quickly. In addition, the information is easy to access by everybody. Considering the accessibility to information and swiftness of gaining the knowledge, children exploit the information to find new solutions for the issues. A research results indicates that information is an important factor to make creativity. An innovator interconnects diffused information to generate new ideas. When a child has easy and quick access to the information, he can practice improving his creativity. Therefore, the more and quicker the knowledge is gained, the more and sooner the creativity will be improved.

The last but not least reason is that technology helps to improve skills. Regarding the advances in technology, children have access to different instruments that using them and learning how to use them have become very simple. By expanding the range of skills that students know, they can make new innovations by using diverse skills. For example, my niece learned to nurture a flower by searching over the internet. She learned how to plant some seeds by scattering them on or in the earth. Then, she learned to take care of the seeds to germinate, to grow, and to bloom. Thus, she learned the skill of gardening by using technology.

Decisively, if one asserts the aforementioned results of technology on children's behavior, one soon realizes that technology has an overall positive effect on children's creativity. In fact, children use technology to gain knowledge quickly and easily, and to develop their several skills. Consequently, they become talented enough to make new ideas. Nowadays, Governments are planning to train children very creative so that they can recruit employees who can help the country grow by new ideas.

Thank you , for such impressive essay. I respect your opinion , but my opinion is quite the inverse. I think nowadays children became more lazy than in past , because of new technology. New technology as , mobile phone, computer and etc. attract them and all their thoughts are considered on them. The children don't read books and they become losing their ability of creativity. Thank you :)

Saharnaz, while you have a very lengthy essay, it is not well discussed at all. You just keep repeating the same discussion over all your paragraphs.Just because you managed to develop 5 paragraphs with long sentences, that does not mean that you successfully created a coherent discussion. A short paragraph without redundancies is better than a long paragraph that only repeats information already stated in the previous paragraph.

You also deviated from the discussion through the example that you presented. You presented an idea as to how your niece learned how to take care of a flower. That explains how children use technology to learn information about things that interest them. That does not illustrate the way that children can develop their creativity through the use of technology. A proper discussion of that evidence should have presented information about how children learn how to manipulate pictures using Photoshop, learn how to draw using Sketch Guru, or even learn how to play music on the piano or drums through Real Piano or Real Drums. Those are creative activities that would have been relevant to the prompt.

This essay would not get a passing grade in an actual test. You need to reconsider the factors that the prompt asks you to discuss and then evaluate the essay that you have written. Then write a fresh essay on the same topic that is closer to the prompt requirements.

Thank you for your feedback. I'll try to apply the points that you mentioned. I have 3 months left to the exam. I think this is enough time to improve my writing. Sometimes, I have some ideas in my mind but I don't know how to express it in English. Therefore, I change the whole idea! The best way to learn a language is "to think" in that language. I think I don't think in English yet. :(


I think if you use present perfect instead of past tense, this sentence will be correct. Is my correction right?

I agree with you somewhat but I tried to write about technology's overall effect. The technology has negative effects too. However, I think teachers and parents play a very important role in training children how to use the technology. If children get trained to use technology positively, they will be more creative because of the new and complicated features that technology has!

Saharnaz, your second try is excellent! The discussion is clear, uses effective examples, and strengthens your support for your poin tof view or opinion on the topic presented. Grammar problems aside, you really did very well with this revision. Your use of music and animation to illustrate the method by which a child can further develop their creativity is something that any child today can identify with.

Your discussion however, could have been better strengthened if you had presented at least one opposition point of view which you could have then countered with an effective argument in support of your position. Remember, an effective essay is one that brings a balanced discussion to any topic and allows both sides to be heard so that the reader can make an informed response.

That said, you don't have to worry so much about your grammar problems. While you would get a fantastic score if you spoke English like a native speaker, the mere fact that you got your ideas across in an understandable manner means that you have the comprehension skills that the assessor will be looking for. Remember, the grade will depend more on how you manage to express your understanding of the prompt rather than the perfection of your use of the English language.

Thank you very much. I thought writing about the opposite side of the issue may reduce my grade since it is against my point of view and does not support my opinion. However, I will apply your suggestion to my next essay.

Your comment is really helpful for me, especially your last sentence that leads me to write an essay which is more coherent than it has perfect grammar and complex vocabulary usage.