Due to the influence of smartphones, images and videos have become more widespread than text. The literacy debate, an ongoing issue, has recently been amplified around Hangul Day (Celebrating the birth of Korean Script). The main point is the grumbling of the older generation that the younger generation has difficulty communicating due to their lack of vocabulary.
Many students do not know basic Chinese characters even after studying for four years in college, so they cannot write documents or understand them.
There is a clear difference in position on the literacy debate by generation. The 2030 generation does not understand the older generation's concerns or believe a problem exists. For them, communication between generations is no problem, and even if there is a word they do not understand, they can find it right away by searching the Internet or asking on social media, so there is no need to mention literacy.
On the other hand, the older generation’s position is rather strong. They criticize the 2030 generation’s lack of literacy by citing various reasons: they cannot understand even the most basic meaning of words because they do not read enough, their increased exposure to the Internet makes reading difficult, their school education focuses on memorization, and their exclusive use of Hangul.
The 2030 generation is naturally far ahead of the older generation regarding digital literacy. The 2030 generation can be called digital natives, having grown up in an internet environment since birth and in a mobile environment during adolescence. The 2030 generation uses the internet for virtually all aspects of their daily lives, including information acquisition, communication, entertainment, finance, dating, and convenience. For those who spend a considerable amount of money on purchasing new digital devices, digital literacy is almost perfect. You can communicate and do everything as long as you have a cell phone. In addition, as generative artificial intelligence, represented by ChatGP, recently began mobile services, the digital literacy of the 2030 generation is improving even more.
On the other hand, the digital literacy of the older generation is improving compared to the past, but it is still low compared to the 2030 generation.
Let’s ask a question here. Is the controversy over literacy something that happened after the development of the Internet and didn’t happen before? If we look at the records, this isn’t the first time there has been a controversy over literacy.
When Hangul began to be used in the late Joseon Dynasty, people lamented the younger generation’s inability to use Chinese characters properly. These cases were reported in the media whenever Hangul's use expanded or the proportion of Chinese characters in textbooks was reduced, and they were used to point out the younger generation’s lack of literacy.
In newspaper articles from the 1960s and 1970s, frequent articles were saying that young people at the time were using Chinese characters incorrectly because they lacked Chinese character skills. Despite these concerns from the older generation, the use of Chinese characters continued to decrease, and most of the current generation has become accustomed to this environment. The current older generation was the younger generation before that. Therefore, it is inevitable that their Chinese character skills are much lower than those of the previous generation, and it can be said that they were naturally criticized by the older generation. This generation is now pointing out the literacy of the 2030 generation. Specifically, they are not talking about literacy but rather about vocabulary. However, it is inappropriate to point out that you lack vocabulary or have literacy problems because you cannot immediately understand the meaning of a few words.
Being obsessed with language, especially letters, or giving excessive meaning to them does not help maintain smooth communication. If you are obsessed with literalism, you lose understanding of the context and repeat opinionated claims. The Bible is also continuously being translated into easy modern language. There is no need to maintain an old version of the Bible that the younger generation cannot read. Not immediately understanding a few Chinese words in the Bible is not a problem. What is important is to find or develop a means of communication that the other person or other generations can understand and communicate.
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