Every morning my father buys a newspaper on his way to work. Every evening my mother looks through magazines at home. And every night, I look at the posters with photos of David Beckham and Yao Ming on my bedroom wall before I go to sleep.
Paper was first created about 2, 000 years ago, and has been made from silk, cotton, bamboo, and, since the 19th century, from wood. But in those days, books could only be produced one at a time by hand. As a result, they were expensive and rare. And because there weren't many books, few people learned to read.
When printing was developed greatly at the beginning of the 11th century, books could be produced more quickly and cheaply.
Today information can be received online, downloaded from the Internet rather than found in books, and information can be kept on CD-ROMs or machines such as MP3 players.
Computers are already used in classrooms, and newspapers and magazines can already be read online. No, I don't think the poster about Yao Ming on my bedroom wall will ever be replaced by a two-metre-high computer!
| A. People learned to write words on paper to make a book. B. So will books be replaced by computers one day? C. Can we imagine life without paper or print? D. Then printing was invented in China. E. As a result, more people learned to read. After that, knowledge and ideas spread quickly. |
