media are to us like water to fish, one chinese student wrote in her reflection on going without media for 24 hours -- a study my university (of maryland) undertook past fall in nine different countries across the continents: argentina, china mainland, china hong kong, chile, great britain, slovakia, uganda, united states, lebanon, and mexico. almost 1,000 students participated -- not that all made it through the 24 but were brave enough to try.
germany was not part of it. yet, at least one similar experiment was conducted with a german family in a different context for a public tv (wdr) feature story (unfortunately in german). in the media magazine swr contra medien of march 14, 2011 members of the fincos family admitted in an interview that they wouldn't go through one week (!) without media again. friends inquired what was wrong with them, school work became hard and favorite television shows were missed (lindenstrasse) although the family enjoyed spending more time together.
in our study at the university of maryland europe was presented by slovakia for the east and great britain for the west. i analyzed slovakia (and also uganda) apart from other areas of interest and what struck all of us researchers the most was the lack of difference in overall reaction: college students for the most part use language of addiction when they reflect upon their need and use for media no matter if its in uganda or slovakia, the united states or mexico.
media also pretty much translated into the internet, facebook, and smart phones apart from yearning for cell phone use and maybe a bit of television.
indeed, i would say the internet soon will be like electricity, ubiquitous and a staple of civilized life with a black out considered a catastrophe -- except when electricity fails we have candles and lighters, but what do we have when the internet goes away?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment