New Media Trends Among ODL Students in Pakistan and Their Impact on Learning

Abstract

This research study aimed at exploring the new media trends among the open and distance learning students in Pakistan and the ultimate effects of excessive usage of various media outlets on educational learning, life pattern and social capital of the students. The study also tested the Time Displacement Hypothesis of Robert Putnam (1995), which postulates that the heavy usage of media causes the decline in the time spent in other important activities like learning, interpersonal communication, social and physical activities, and which ultimately erodes the social capital of users. The sample size was 500 students of various educational levels studying in AIOU, Islamabad, Pakistan and the data was collected through a survey with the help of a self-administered questionnaire. The regression model has been implied to explore the relationship between new media trends/activities of the students and their affects on educational learning, life pattern, physical activities, exercise and social capital. The results show that the study has not predicted any displacement effect of the use of internet on social capital and educational learning of the university students in Pakistan. These findings do not support the popular view that heavy users of internet are more isolated and less connected to society than the non-users. However, the study supports the Uses and Gratification theory of Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch (1974), which says that the media users are active and no more passive and they use various media outlets to best gratify their social and psychological needs. // Paper ID 269