Digital Engineers: Results of a Survey Study Documenting Digital Media and Device Use Among Freshmen Engineering Students

The current generation of college students has been dubbed Digital Natives, Generation Y and/or the Net Generation and seemingly possesses distinctive habits as well as perceptions about the use of digital media and device that set them apart from their predecessors. Despite the claim that these college students are avid consumers and users of media content and devices, there is limited understanding about the media use habits of engineering students belonging to this generation. To better understand the digital media and device habits of incoming engineering students, we conducted a survey-based study at a large university in the United States. We obtained 204 valid responses. Two surveys were designed to obtain self-reported information on the frequency of media device usage, participation in social networking, academic activities and information seeking tendencies. Through this survey study, not only are we able to document the significant use of digital media and devices among engineering students, we are able to provide specific findings related to the role of digital media and devices on socializing and learning activities of freshmen engineering students. Findings also indicated that female freshmen engineering students are more likely to use the cellphone for talking, texting as well as participation in Wikipedia platform when compared to the males.