You are joining over 1 billion people in the world in this predicament. 1. Should you be worried? No, because you will still be able to learn and use Chinese as a practical tool for daily life and business. 2. Is it better to understand traditional characters? Yes, but you will when you get to an advanced level of studying simplified characters. 3. Why is it a good thing to understand traditional Chinese characters? For heritage and culture. For the true beauty of the language. For authenticity in reading books, essays and calligraphy (including couplets mounted on the walls of the Forbidden City) written before 1956. 4. What happened to the Chinese language? Chairman Mao made a decision. 5. Are traditional characters useless? No. A country's national heritage is never useless. At least one modern President and one Premier of the People's Republic of China have signed their names in traditional characters. It is not inconceivable that one day traditional characters will be used by a social elite in China again. 6. Is it an emotional issue? For some people, yes. 7. Is it a political issue? For some people, yes. 8. What should you do? Go with the flow. If you are in an environment where the traditional characters are taught, learn them. If you are in an environment where simplified characters are used, use them. Either way, make sure that you learn pinyin, for faster and more convenient typing on any classic English-only keyboard.

如果你学习汉语只是兴趣，满足于一般的使用，暂时可以不用学习正体字（the tradional)，如果想了解真正的中国传统文化，正体字必学。恢复正体字只是一个迟早的事。我知道有许多人会反对我这个说法，没关系，时间会证明一切。

Tradition character is only used in Taiwan and HK. I'm native Chinese and I can read traditional character but to write, it's not possible and not useful.

traditional symbols are only used in Hong Kong and Taiwan so you needn't study them

From my perspective, though I've been using simplified characters so far, I still can understand the traditional ones. So I believe if you stick to your study of simplified characters for a longer term, you'll gradually and naturally understand the traditional ones, because there are relations between them and also patterns. You don't need to worry about this. But if you try to manage them both from the beginning, it might be counterproductive and you might not master either of them. On the other hand, believe me though I'm a native Chinese, sometimes I still don't understand cursive. Because Chinese characters are like graphics, when people write cursive, it is sometimes hard to tell what they've written. So... Don't worry about this. I suggest you learn Chinese step by step and hope you enjoy learning the language. : )