  Trends in media usage by students can affect the way they learn. Students
demand the use of technology, thus institutions and instructors should meet
students requests. This paper describes the results of a survey where drivers
in the use of media show continuously increasing or decreasing values from the
first to the fourth year of study experience at the Western University, Canada,
highlighting trends in the usage of new and traditional media in higher
education by students. The survey was used to gather data on students media
usage habits and user satisfaction from first to fourth year of study and found
that media usage increases over the years from first to fourth. The
presentation of data using bar charts reveals a slight increase over the years
in students owning notebooks or laptops off-campus and a significant increase
from first to fourth year of students accessing online academic periodicals and
journals. Another noteworthy finding relates to fourth year students being more
conscious of the quality of information that they read on the Internet in
comparison to students in first year, even though this is a slight year on year
increase.
