IELTS Preparation: technology and tradition, incompatible or not? Topic: It is inevitable that as technology develops so traditional cultures must be lost. Technology and tradition are incompatible—you cannot have both together. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Nowadays, the issue of whether or not technology and tradition could coexist together has sparked off an intense debate. Although some people claim that traditional cultures must be lost as technology develops, I personally oppose this view and I believe technology could be beneficial to the perseverance of tradition. People who think that technology and tradition are incompatible claim that some traditions do go out of fashion. For example, as machines replace manual works, many clothes today are manufactured in production line rather than sewed manually. Thus, the sewing techniques as a traditional skill may disappear. However, they are oversimplifying the situation. For one thing, preserving traditional culture does not mean refusing changes of any kind. As to the example mentioned before, if people turned back sticking to sewing clothes manually, this would have resulted in low efficiency and backwards of social development. For another, not everything being lost could be called traditional culture. Rather, only those survive through history could be called so. For example, people began to use lamp instead of fire to lighten when Edison invented lamp, but it would be hard-pressed to define lightening by fire as the symbol of traditional culture. In others words, technology helps to identify what is the real traditional culture. Yet others argue that technology is helpful in preserving traditions instead. To begin with, advanced technology provides appropriate preserving conditions. For instance, some antiques have to be kept under a certain room temperature and air-conditioning today makes this requirement possible. Moreover, technology is conducive to broadcasting traditions. For example, few people had the opportunity to appreciate classical music before CD players, cassette and other voice store media came into existence. In contrast, these technologies help to publicize classical music and pass down from generation to generation. To conclude, I am convinced that technology is more conducive than harmful to traditional culture perseverance.