What will the Internet be like in the future for college students?
If it has changed so much only over the past decade, how much more advanced will it become in the next decade?
People make predictions all the time, but the only real way to find out is to wait and actually experience it…
My goal was to figure out what ways college students use the Internet. This relates to me personally because I am a college student who uses the Internet immensely. I was curious whether other college students use the Internet for the same purposes as me. From my survey and my research, I was able to gain conclusions of what students use the Internet for. Being that they are in college, I am curious as to whether students use it more for school-related reasons or personal purposes. My survey and research demonstrate how popular the Internet is and how much it is really used. I guarantee all college students today, even myself, wonder what life would be like without the Internet and how different it would be. I believe that students today would not be able to make it through college without Internet. How would they do any type of research? My final project will get people thinking about how important the Internet really is and how much it impacts their lives.
After already hearing from the viewpoints of both girls and guys in college, I have come to the conclusion that college students use the Internet for a variety of reasons. My personal results and research show that the Internet is most used for non-academic purposes. It is interesting how college students, who probably should be using the Internet most for academic purposes, do not. From the possible ways that I listed in my survey, I use the Internet for e-mail, social networking, blogging, research (school related), research (not school related), news, entertainment, online education, and banking. Personally, I would say that I use the Internet the most for social media during this time in my life. Next would probably be for both looking up non-school related information and school related research.
Being that Creativity and Expression in the 21st Century is a course where we have been learning about the advancements in technology and how it affects our creativity, I found that my final project relates to these ideas very much. The Internet is definitely, by far, the most used form of technology today, especially by college students. From my project, I gained a ton of information that I probably would have never thought about before. People use the Internet every single day and really do take advantage of it. They do not realize how lucky they are to have something so convenient in their lives. After hearing the opinions of an adult with no Internet in college, it really got me thinking how college students have it made these days. I certainly would not want to spend all day in a library looking up research for a paper that I had to write and neither would any of you.
I am sure that people have different opinions about whether or not the Internet hinders or increases our creativity. In my opinion, I believe it does a little bit of both. When things are as simple as going on the Internet to easily find an answer, it can cause us not to think outside the box as much. The Internet maximizes our creativity in a way that it gives us so much flexibility about how we can go about something. There is an abundance of ways the Internet can be used for. The more possibilities we have, the more creative we can be.
And here are my survey results as promised…
Below is a podcast where I interview an adult who did not have Internet when she was in college. I wanted to get a different perspective from someone older. Listen in to find out how different college would be without having Internet…
Below is my second brief podcast where I ask a guy, who is a college seniors at Rutgers, a couple of questions about his Internet usage. Let’s see how he differs from the girls’ podcast. Listen in to find out what he has to say about the Internet…
Below is my first brief podcast where I ask two girls, who are college seniors at Rutgers, a couple of questions about their Internet usage. Listen in to find out what they have to say…
After doing even more research on the Internet, I found this short relevant video that ties into my already-stated ideas. This video was made by an actual college student portraying information about college students and their Internet usage. I am assuming that she made this video for a class, so she was in the same position I am in. She gives us some facts and figures that, yet again, emphasize how much college students use the Internet. She also brings up the point that more time is spent on the Internet doing leisure activities, as opposed to school work. The video shows what websites are particularly popular and how much time is spent on them. All of the research and videos that I have found so far follow the same trends. College students use the Internet A WHOLE LOT for many different purposes, but especially for non-academic reasons like social networking.
After doing more research, I found another video that has to do with Cisco’s study in 2011, which is named “Connected World Technology Report.” Tom Gillis, the vice president of Cisco Systems Inc., goes more into depth about how important the Internet is for college students. He even found out that college students prefer the Internet over a car. 64% percent of college students would rather have Internet access than access to a car. The world we live in is so connected through the Internet that these statistics are believable. Cisco also took a poll on whether college students prefer to access information on the Internet or in the newspaper. It was not a surprise to me that 96% of students answered the Internet. Gillis brings up a point that the Internet is not always such a good thing. Studies found that it interrupts 84% of college students at least once from their studies. This has definitely happened to me before. The video posted below also gives us some interesting information about Facebook and Twitter. As a college student, I can relate to Cisco’s statistics and this video very much.
If you look around a college campus, you will notice that the students are using the Internet, whether it be through their phones, laptops, tablets, or the school’s computers. Almost every college student uses the Internet for some reason or another. The question is… what are they using the Internet for?
Well, after doing some research on the Internet, I found some interesting facts and statistics about college students’ Internet usage. You would think that since people in college are students that they would be using the Internet most for academic purposes, but this is not always true. Some college students, in fact, spend most of their time on the Internet doing non-academic activities. These non-academic activities include e-mailing, playing games, watching videos, social networking, and more. In our generation, social networking is the most popular it has ever been. Through the use of Facebook, Twitter, and many other sites, college students are able to easily connect with others, and it is shown that these sites are used multiple times a day.
The chart below indicates the Internet activity among different generations. It is interesting to see the differences and similarities among the age groups. According to this specific chart, e-mail, search, and health information are always most used across generations. In the college student generation, social networking has become one of the top reasons for the use of the Internet, but as the generations get older, social networking decreases.
I also found another chart below that proves social networking, specifically Facebook, is most popular for college students, or people aged 18 to 25. As you can see in this chart, people aged 55-65 have the lowest percentage for the use of Facebook.
The research that I have found came from the following sources…
Everyday life, online: U.S. college students' use of the Internet
Plugged in: Five Ways College Student Internet Use is Unique
Is the Internet as important as food, water, shelter, and air? A study was done by Cisco, one of the biggest tech companies in the world, on how the Internet has become such a huge part of our everyday lives. As college students, we are a generation that probably cannot live without the Internet.
This video briefly describes the study…
College Students and the Internet 