1111 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

1111 - Essay Example In the study, directed by Susan D. Moeller, a professor of journalism as Maryland University, 200 students were asked to give up their electronic gadget for 24 hours. The students were unwilling to give up their electronic gadgets and they only did so unwillingly because they had to oblige to their teachers’ request. In the study, it was observed that most of the 200 students who took part in the study seemed traumatised by the experience of giving up their digital devices. In response to their experiences for the 24 hours that they remained without their digital gadgets, the students expressed various experiences about how they felt alienated and disconnected from the world or from their friends and relatives. This study showed that media influences people’s decisions in various ways. To begin with, in this study, it was found that the majority of American students are really addicted to media. This is because describing their feelings when they have to abstain from using media requires using the terms that are used to describe other forms of addictions; these terms include withdraw, frantic cravings, anxiety, jittery, crazy, miserable, and extremely antsy ( Maasik and Solomon, 2003 ). For this reason, therefore, media influences the decisions of people in a significant way through making people addicted to it. Once one is addicted to media, his/her decisions in life will be inclined or based on their objects of addiction, i.e. media. That is why we learn in this study the students who participated in this study unanimously expressed the view that they felt isolated from life when they abstained from using their digital gadgets. Secondly, we learn in this study that for the majority of the students who took part in the study, abstaining from using media meant losing their personal connections; for the students, electronic gadgets are their links to the world and abstaining from using digital gadgets, therefore,