Lesson 1

Media Environment
Learning Objectives:

• Understand who the millennials are and who they are perceived;

• Distinguish the difference between millennials from other generations;

• Know how the millennials control social media;

• Be aware of the effects of the internet to us humans;

• Know how technology affecting us humans and the world; and

• Be informed on how technology has changed overtime.

Millennials and the Rise of the Information Society

What is the age bracket of the generation?

It is a common misconception that the millennials are simply the latter part of the generation. Most people
believe that even if you are born in the latter years of the 90's (up until year 2000), you're technically a
millennial. Pew Research announced as of 2018 that you can only use the label millennial to those who were
born between the years 1981 and 1996. In today's time 2020 they are the ones who age 24 to 38.

The Millennial Personality: Other generations on Millennials

Personalities every generation has them. These young adults, which are the millennials, making their way
into a new stage in life which is adulthood at a start of a new millennium have begun to change. They shape
and construct their confidence, self-expressiveness, liberation, and their minds that are very much open to
change. Compared to other adults or the other generations, their ethical perspective and racial perspective
are more diverse. They have become less religious or spiritual. Study says that they are less likely to serve in
the military. However, they are towards the path of becoming the most education generation in American
History.

On the road to become the most educated generation, 39.6% were enrolled in university or college as of
2008, according to research. Manners wise, millennials are on good terms with their parents. Despite the
media labelling this generation as politically disengaged, millennials were one of previous American
President Barack Obama's supporters in 2008 with a two-to-one ratio.

Millennials are known for being, as the older generation says, self-centered. According to Jos Ortega, the
chairman and CEO of Havas Media Ortega wherein anthropologists study millennials, the foundation of
millennial decision-making is "I want to do things on my own terms".

Millennials have a perspective in life where in whatever decision they make, it must be their very own.
Despite failure, based on the decision it's alright, it's my decision, they will abundantly accept the
consequences and go on with their lives. After all, it was their decision and they will learn from it
Millennials developed their minds all through the electronics field and progressively constructing their way
to make social life in social networked world. This generation has established the most attention when it
comes to trades and merchandises of many various products and deals due to their countless needs. At this
kind of situation, millennials are inclined to tolerate huge differences. Being raised in an era of people
believing the quote "follow your dreams" are making the mind of these people positive and are more likely to
be confident regarding to their works and progresses in life. On the other hand, the confidence of the
millennial's generation has exponentially fading away due to narcissism arid issues with oneself. But based
on the research, they are proven to be more optimistic rather than the other late generations regardless that
they are the first generation (ever since the Silent Generation) to be able to be more effective and fortunate
than their mothers and fathers.

Many millennials experienced educational institution with a certain field, only to discover that they will soon
be employed with an unrelated field or worse, unemployed. They are lucky if they could finish post-secondary
education and afterwards, employed with the particular field they have taken in college. Although the said
generation has been considered, and categorized as lazy, study has already proven that people in this era are
encouraged to work on things especially if it interests them. They comprehend value to the little things that
show significance to them as an individual. Millennials have to see it as an important matter before they put
effort and value to it.

The Image of Millennials

It is not a secret that the older generations do not hide their distaste with the millennial generation. They
have called the millennials killers of the industry, judging them with their outlooks when it comes to marriage,
career path, and simply their perspective in life.

Although people often see just the other side of Spectrum, millennials have created movements that changed
a lot. Good things or bad things, however you want to see the generation of the millennials, they are still the
future leaders of the country, in business, and society in general.

Adapting to New Technology

What is the New Technology?

It is no secret that technology has ghastly evolved over the past few years. From the means of communication
to transportation, it's unbelievable oh how far we've come.

Any set of progress in techniques which offers significant help over the created technology for a given process
is a new technology. Whether it is a new invention or an innovation of a previous work, as long as it new
application of a scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in the industry, it is new technology.
Millennials on SocialMedia

Millennials for the last ten years have gained a massive increase of popularity when it comes to social
networking online with common users collectively counting in millions. Both males and females have an equal
amount of using the social network and no difference has occurred regarding nationality and race. Millennials
today are the biggest and leading generation in the world and it developed its way to the top with innovation
and technology by their side helping them in terms of media stands and putting them in place where they get
hooked with regard to social media habits. Cell phones, laptops, and televisions are the examples of
technology that they most often get addicted with. New and advanced technology are in disguised as a
fashion trend where millennials are digging their way to have it simply because it is practiced and made to
.be addictive. They are so good with their multi-tasking capabilities that they can work on school, assignment
on their computer, and do research at their tablet all while taking notes; and later that day, they will sit in
front of the television to watch a movie and at the same time, chatting or texting a friend on Facebook from
their phones or laptops. Researches have certain reports that millennials are more skilled and capable of
doing multitasking compared with the older generations.

Social Media on Millennials

Social media has become more developed and approved by most of the people regarding trends and style. It
is the most used way as of today for interacting and communicating globally. Researchers have explained
that the social media have so much to benefit people from. Therefore; it is examined as one of the best
examined learning devices that mends to tine people's talking and communicating skills and knowledge.
According to Kavitha & Bhuvaneswari, it is found to act as a main social influence when it comes to social
media that affects the personal life of the users.

The conflict of Millennials to social media with their cell phones discharges a chemical that is called
"dopamine" that when an individual gets a notification; it will make him/her feel good and better. They
express their emotions through social media because they are expecting a response from others and that is
what makes them feel good. Dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes people feel good when they
smoke and drink so in other words it is indeed, extremely addictive. An entire generation that has access to
an addictive chemical-called dopamine through social media, after technologies like cell phones and
computers as they are like going through the pressure of teenagers. Some millennials discover by accident
the shocking effects of dopamine to help them manage the tensions and anxieties of puberty but
unfortunately that becomes a bad example of growing up as an adult. Scientist who conducted certain
experiments on many different societies made them noticed that people who spend extra time on their
screens doing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. experience higher rates of depression less than to those
people who spend less time on social media. In fact, there is nothing wrong with social media and cellphones
but it is the imbalance of using it and spending a lot more time than being productive for the day.
The example of this imbalance usage of social media is when people are sitting in a meeting with important
people where you are supposed to be listening to and speaking With then you the started using cell phones
instead of doing urgent things, and the fact that people' cannot put it away is because they are addicted to
it. Another example is when a person wakes up and starts to check his/her phone firstly in the morning before
saying good morning; to his/her love ones only shows that people who experienced this show signs of
addiction and like all addiction, sooner or later will destroy relationships, cost time and money and will make
a life miserable.

The Many Forms of Social Media

It has many forms of diversity of technology enabled activities that includes blogging, social gaming, photo
and video sharing, business and social networks, virtual worlds, reviews and many more. Government, private
sector, politicians, and international and local celebrities make use of social media to engage with
constituents, customers, voters, and avid fans.

For individuals, the use of social media is for family, friends and extended family that use various applications
to look and search for opportunities on their career, search people world-wide with their interest, likes, and
share thoughts, feelings, insight, and emotions, and engage in the activities of virtual social network.

For businesses, the role of social media is crucial tool that used some companies as a platform to find and
engage with customers, consumer trends, offering good customer service or support and even drive sales
through advertising, marketing and promoting their products.

The significant role of social media is helping the business to facilitate the communication with customers,
ability to collect information from the customer to focus on the marketing efforts and research, enabling the
merging of social interactions on e-commerce sites, helps in promotion products and services according to
targeted in distribution, exclusive sales and .coupons tb would-be customers, and timely that- helps to build
customer relationships through loyalty programs linked to social media.

Real World Example

There are positive and negative sides of social media-that may use in any point of platform features, equating
its overuse that leads to an addiction and contributes to absentmindedness, stress, and jealousy.

The figures for the most popular social media websites as of January 2019, are as follows:

• 2.27 billion users of Facebook

• 1.9 billion users of YouTube
• 1.5 billion users of WhatsApp
• 1.3 billion users of Facebook Messenger
• 1.08 billion users of WeChat
 • 1 billion users of Instagram
• 803 million users of QQ
• 531 milliom users of QZone
• 500 million users of Douyin/Tik Tok
• 446 million users of Sino Weibo

Millennials' dependency on the internet

Almost everyone in today's time uses technology. Whether it is for the means of communication to usage of
machines to building fire, that is technology. With the century we are currently living in with technology
surrounding us, technology has helped us in our daily lives. It is difficult not to use technology. But the biggest
group of people who uses social media or the internet in general are the millennials. There are a. lot of ways
that we can say that millennials are dependent or even obsessed-as the media perceive it to be on technology.

Information gathering

If you were to ask someone if he/she would prefer to go to the library or the internet, it would
probably be the latter. Millennials rely on the internet for gathering any information. When surveyed,
about 88% of millennials receive or get news from Facebook, a big and famous social media platform.
Another report says that they get their daily news from Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit or Tumblr, which
are all social media sites. About 13% use Twitter, 10% use Pinterest, 8% use Reddit while 7% use
Tumblr.

With the number of accessible information in the internet such as google and Wikipedia, they could
access all the information they want.

Navigation and transportation

are a lot of applications that can help you navigate such as Google Maps and Waze. They help you
not only to get around the area but even give you multiple directions for shortcuts and traffic updates
so that you'll know what's the best route to use.

Transportation has been made easier when it comes to commuting. There are applications that
manage bus transports so that you'll know their routes and what time they would arrive. You can
even get yourself a cab over your smartphones with the use of Uber or Grab.
 Communication

The millennials or generation y are more globally diverse compared to the previous generations. They
have friends and families all over the world. Nowadays, only few use landlines since phones have
drastically evolved to smartphones. Messaging apps such as Messenger and Skype are already used.
They are free, all you need is internet connection.

Education

It is amazing how technology has evolved. Today, you can already learn and study via your computer.
There are already online schools where in they will give you books and activities so that you won't
need to leave your home. In the Philippines, we have AMA and South Ville, and that is just two out
of the many. Not to mention, with the existing pandemic, PUP is also utilizing the internet as a
medium of teaching and learning.

With every click we make in everyday that we surf the web, Google and other companies collect information
and feed us advertisements. It's an economic ploy to drive us to distraction and they gain money.

It can be those ironic things wherein you benefit and yet you don't. With the help of technology, every day's
duties have become easier. With your smartphones, you may be able to recall your list of things to do and
where you need to go. It has become easier to communicate with someone in a different place whether that
person's miles to thousands of miles away. With just a few clicks, you can already find the information you
need instead of going around the library for hours. If s less time consuming and yet the abuse of people who
use it disrupts it all.

The internet has made us lazy, like mentioned above, the incapability of reading lengthy books or articles
from being able to. There are times wherein people do not want to think for themselves and just rely on
search engines such as Google. Research says that the internet has made us impatient as well.
As nature goes, as a new generation enters, they get more and more impatient. Microsoft has recently
discovered that people are suffering from a decline or decrease of attention span. Now, we have an average
of eight (8) seconds of attention span. A study by Jampp has found out that our attention span declines by
88% every year. Just like everything else, if there's a good side there will be a bad side. Though technology
has been praised and criticized at the same time, we can still all say that we are thankful that it continues to
evolve.
Overview of New Technological Development

How technology changed the world

Technology changed the education system.

Education and learning approaches were changed by the technology the first time IBM was
introduced as the first personal computer back in 1981. People knew from the start that technologies
will grow vastly because of how technology progresses, and because of people's dissatisfaction in
the advancement of technology. Some of the best schools were built but unfortunately, these
institutes were far-flung from the homes of some and that was not motivating in some ways.

So because of that, technology once again found an answer and that is to provide online schools.
Anyone nowadays can have a degree online just by operating his/ her computers with internet.

Technology changed the methods of communicating

Technology today has created many various types of application in terms of doing communication
online. Before technology era began in the 8th century, letters and written emails were the first kind
of communication. In 1897, radios for communicating were invented and in 1916 were the first and
longest time-consumed radio broadcast. Today, radios are no longer used by most people due to the
popularity of mobile phones, computers, and even a video conferencing tools. The advantage of doing
the communication online is that it is constant and fast, and easy and known as the quickest way of
communication. In the past, a hand-written letter takes up to a span of 10 days to get hold of the
information written inside the letter. Social media nowadays are the most ranked tool for
communicating and interacting because of its many benefits.

Technology changed people's health.

There are both positive and negative effects of technology in the health of the people. These days,
health care services and technologies used in checkups are more developed than the previous
generations. But the reason due to the inventions of these are also because of the thought that
people are abusing the use of technology in their daily lives.
What is the new technological development?

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence or known as Al is the replication of machine's intellect and a human

intelligence. Some art or applications of an Al includes its expertise on systems, speech recognition,
and its very own machine vision. Artificial Intelligence (Al) has two categorizations either weak or
strong. An Al which is categorized as weak is called the narrow Al and its system is intended and
qualified when it comes to an actual task. An example of this is the Apple's voice named Siri. A
strong Al on the other hand, is called as the artificial general intelligence. It is capable of reacting
upon human cognitive abilities and it is strong enough to discover a solution without the intervention
of humans.

3D Printing

3D printing is correspondingly known as additive manufacturing because printing in 3D does not let
it eliminate materials, in fact it adds more of it sheet after sheet. But for you to print a 3D object, it
has to have a 3D model of a certain object to be able for the 3D printer to project the exact result
of it.

Google Glass

Augmented Reality or also known as AR has made its way to be included in the lives of people in
terms of virtual experience and even education itself. Users can download applications to it and can
now view feeds on social media, text messages, and maps that can navigate the actual location of
the user using GPS.

Oculus Rift

Games nowadays have stepped up with Virtual Reality with the help of the Oculus Rift. This 3D
headset will make the users feel the impression of being inside the own video game itself. In the
virtual world of the Rift, with ultra – low latency, you could turn your head around to sight the inside
world of the game in a high-resolution display.
How much has technology changed over the time?

It is clear as day how technology has evolved. From building fire for light to light bulbs to telegrams to online
communications platforms, technology has changed a lot over the time.

Communications

During the old days, you had to send a letter or a telegram to communicate with someone miles away
from you. This may take days and days before it arrives at your doorstep. For checking, you had to
trace where the letter had been sent and if the opposite or correct person received it. Errors such as
the letters getting in the hands of the incorrect receiver or messages getting lost is not rare as well.
But with today's technology, it has been made easier. To communicate with someone, all you need
is a cell phone or a computer to send them a message.

There are a lot of platforms and options to communicate with someone far away these days. You can
always go for your "classic" way of calling via telephone or you-can use your cellular phones to give
them a call or send a message via SMS. Now, you can use social media for means of communication.
There is a large variety of options you can choose from Facebook to Twitter to Skype to Viber, and
now we are utilizing Google Meet, Zoom, Team and the likes. They have become a part of our
everyday lives and in all honesty, they might not be gone in a very long time. Whether that person is
beside you, blocks away, or even miles and oceans away, your message will be delivered at the same
rate and speed (of course, still depending on your internet connection). It is amazing how you can
send a voice message or a text message that can be delivered in nanoseconds.

Bills Payment and Money Transfers

The bank is a revolutionary advancement. Who knew we would go from trading cows and shells to
having paper money and coins? Money storage and control has been made easier because of this.
However, with the continuous progress and advancement of technology, you don't even have to go
to the bank to pay your bills or send and receive money. With a simple tap from your fingertips, you
can already do it on your smart phones.

Countless banks are already making online transactions possible due to its hassle-free benefit. There
are heaps of companies, such as PayPal and PayMaya, and the one that it very common to you,
GCash, created platforms wherein people can send and receive money from anybody from any part
of the world with the usage of the internet.

You can even use your smart phones for payment in physical stores so that you won't have to carry
cash anymore.
 Entertainment

Smartphones have taken over the world. There has been a study that about two (2) million
smartphones being sold every day. Connected to smartphones is social media which has vastly grew
over the past few years. It has helped a lot of people from across the globe not just for entertainment
purposes but gave them accessible information as well. Nearly 3.2 billion people who uses the
internet actively according to one study. That is practically half of the earth's population.

It is almost impossible for someone not to be. on the. internet. Even four-year old nowadays have
access to internet and can already navigate and use computers, phones, or tablets. There are even
people getting obsessed over social media platforms such as Facebook and Instragram.

You can watch your favorite movies or series on your television. But since smartphones continues to
develop, you can already watch movies or video on it, YouTube and Netflix being one of the biggest
and most popular platforms. Back in the days, people watch Videos on the television and they may
use tapes. In 1999, people use video tapes as home entertainment. In 2006, 94% of the US population
use DVD for home entertainment. Now you can store your movies in external hard drives. You can
watch videos straight from your smart televisions and smartphones.

New technologies that could change the world

it is crazy, even almost unbelievable, how much technology changed the world. Now, there's cure for different
illness unlike before. There are more innovative drainages, machines, and transportation these days.

Agricultural Drones

With the help of technology, farmers begin to use drones with cameras attached to them to improve
how they treat their crops. The drone allows the farmers to have a different perspective compared
to the previous satellite used. They only not help reveal irrigation treatment issues and soil variation
but distressed plants as well. This costs less compared to methods such as crop imaging. The
agricultural drone has been made possible with the usage of GPS, digital radios; and small sensors.

Ultra-Private Smartphones

The concern over privacy grows and grows as countless hackers make their way into other people's
devices. However, a Maryland based company, Silent Circles, now encrypts their client's text
messages, voice mails, and even files that they have attached to the messages or they have sent.
Encryption protects metadata by preventing hackers or crackers from accessing the device. The
company, Silent Circle, even has plans to create a smartphone called Blackphone. It will use
encryption that is currently being used by the company.
 Brain Mapping

Neuroscientists have worked decades of decades just to understand how the brain works. Human
Brain Project, an international team of researchers, has created a three-dimensional atlas of the
brain. With its map revolution fifty times better than the previous efforts, the creators digitally
stitched thousands of brain cross-sections.

Genome Editing

Researches in China has made a big technological advancement by creating a pair of monkeys with
the usage of genetic mutations. They used CRISPR, a new method of DNA engineers. This will allow
you to modify fertilize eggs. CRISPR has the. potential to help researchers and doctors to study
ailments such as autism and Alzheimer's by identifying genetic mutations.

Microscale 3-D Printing

Before you can only print on different types of paper, now you can print in 3D. Today, plastic is the
only way to use 3D Printing. However, I researchers from Harvard University led by Jennifer Lewis,
developed a new ink-based 3D printer. As time comes and technology will continue to develop, new
inks will enable to create artificial organs.

Summary
This topic covers millennials and new technologies. Millennials are people born in the years between 1981
and 1996. They are the generation wherein the internet bloomed. Though everyone, whatever generation you
are from, uses the internet nowadays, millennials are the one most attached to it. They are the generation
that witnessed the progress of technology (the internet).

Since the usage of internet by millennials continuously increases, this affects them drastically. It's not just
millennials but as well as other people who use it in general.