This week, as part of a group project, I conducted a face to face questionnaire which sought to target 18 - 21 year old male undergraduates and find out about their interactive media habits. The questionnaire focussed on finding out how many hours a day 18 - 21 year old undergraduates spent using interactive media. The results predominantly showed they spent 5+ hours a day using interactive media. In terms of some of the core activites they participated in, this included things such as playing video games, viewing Facebook and sending and recieiving e-mails. Subsequently, they indicated they were very reliant on interactive media.
In addition, the questionnaire asked the 18 - 21 year old male undergraduates who participated, what single piece of interactive media they could not live without if they were stuck on a desert island. The results predominantly reveaed 18 - 21 year old male undergraduates could not live without their mobile phones or Facebook.
As part of this project, it involved drawing upon ideas presented from a journal article written by Prensky (2001), Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. In this article, Prensky (2001) stated digital natives are students today who are all "native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. In contrast, digital immigrants are those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some point later in their lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of new technology. In terms of the results from the questionnaire conducted by the group I was apart of, it could be said 18 - 21 year old male undergraduates are digital natives as they have spent all their lives surrounded by and using computers, video games and digital music players. These types of interactive media are integral parts of their lives.
According to Presnky (2001), children today are being socialised in a way that is vastly different from their parents. For example, over 10,000 hours are spent playing video games, over 200,000 e-mails and instant messages are sent and received, and over 20,000 hours are spent watching TV.
Therefore, as professional communicators it is important to realise that interactive media is one of the most important mediums to market and advertise products and services to consumers currently. Interactive media has changed the landscape of marketing and advertising over the last few years and is set to continue to do so.
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