Public Speaking Competition 2006

Trago a seguir o discurso que apresentei numa competição de inglês, em 2006, em Brasília.
Trata-se da International Public Speaking Competition, uma competição de oratória que seleciona o melhor orador entre uma vasta gama de selecionados. A grande final acontece todos os anos em Londres, e cada país faz a sua seletiva interna.
Participei a final nacional, representando minha região com o discurso a seguir.

Mapping the global future: Computers, games and television: Allies or Enemies of the future?


Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived away from here. Every day, when he left school, he used to go home, do his homework and then… he spent the rest of the day just watching TV, playing videogames and sometimes, reading.
That way, many people could say that he became an alienated adolescent, who only sees nonsense TV programmes and that he is a game addict, who spends all his allowance buying new videogames. But, what happened to him?
Well gentlemen, after many years playing videogames, watching TV and surfing on the net, he grew up, developed many skills, including his English vocabulary, and he is here, right in front of you.
So, I can ask: Are computers, games and television really as bad as some people usually say? Perhaps not.
Some recently researches have shown that children and teenagers are reading, writing and also calculating much better than they were doing for 20, 30 year’s ago, according to the Avaliação Nacional de Progresso Educacional, which is made every year at the United States of America, since 1971.
In fact, people are really writing better, maybe because in today’s world the words are more important than they were during the TV Golden Age, at the 1970’s. The use of internet is making people talk to anyone in the world using computers, what develops people’s writing abilities, even if they’re writing at the web using abbreviations and new words. That develops the vocabulary of a language and the language itself. And so, happens an amazing development of young people’s writing and reading abilities, because they can write the way they want at the computer, but not at school, developing both sides of a language: the popular and the formal.
In a world dominated by technology, many people thinks that the books are depreciated. Well, people who think that way might be the ones who doesn’t read not even the newspapers. The books are still the most powerful media in the world. Every year, polemic books are published, shocking the society. Who haven’t read anything about “The Da Vinci Code”? This book would never generate so much polemic if it were published in a website or in a game.
One of the books we can call a real multimedia are the Harry Potter series. These books were transformed into films and videogames! Many children have started reading after they saw the films or played the games. It shows the different medias working together.
The games are some very interesting media. They’re not better than the books, and neither the opposite. They just improve different abilities. While books improve only the imagination and vocabulary, some games develop the fine motor skills and coordination, crucial habilities of surgeons.
It’s true that there are very violent games, which are definitely not suitable for children. Some people think that we should vent our angriness in the games, and not in real life. That way, violent games can be good, but only for adults.
The violence is not only at the games, but also at the TV, which is more accessible. Many films and series shows violent and nudity scenes, what is bad for children because they are too young to see that.
But television can still be a good teacher. After all, not all TV programmes show nudity and violence. Many educational programmes and some TV series can improve the intelligence and other important skills. The TV also shows the culture of other countries and their language, improving the vocabulary of a different idiom.
The media being used without time limits and supervision may bring bad effects to young people, who can show violent behavior, obesity, postural problems and epilepsy. The web is a danger area, where teenagers can be exposed directly to sex and pornography.
So, what can be done to make the young people enjoy only the benefits of technology? It’s parents’ duty to control how much information their natives accesses using the different medias. Parents must help children to differentiate between fantasy and reality. They should also motivate their natives to do outdoors activities and physical exercises, to keep the body health and develop their social lives.
As Steve Johnson, the writer of “Everything Bad is Good for You” said, “the computers, games and television are not bad for education, but the way and how much they’re used.”