Internet and digital media for educational purposes have significantly improved knowledge creation. The Internet has proven itself to be a valuable resource in the enhancement of knowledge production and dissemination. The purpose of the study was to establish how excessive non-academic use of the Internet detrimentally affects undergraduate students' daily lives. Using survey design, a total of 390 University undergraduate students comprising mainly adolescents/ young adults were selected using stratified random sampling at two South African universities, namely Fort Hare and Nelson Mandela. Data were collected using the Modified Internet Addiction Test for Undergraduates (MIATU), a modification of Internet Addiction Test (IAT) questionnaire. 282 (72.3%) use of the respondents indicated that they make use of the Internet daily with 34.8% spending more than 10 hours. More than 60% have access to at least two electronic devices. Most of the respondents stayed online longer than intended (x 2.88), slept less at night due to Internet use (x 2.63) and hence spent less time studying owing to Internet surfing (x 2.27). Furthermore, the amount of time spent on the Internet had a significant relationship with the level of influence the use of the Internet had on respondents (B = 0.250, t = 4.850, p < 0.05). The findings are indications that the excessive amount of time spent on the Internet served as a distraction from school work, a situation that put students at a disadvantage in as far as academic productivity was involved. These findings clearly suggest that the uncontrolled use of new media is both a hazard and a potential danger to academic productivity.

This study argues that the automobile sector’s body shop is fully automated, the paint shop is 80% automated, there is about 20% technology utilization in the car assembly line, and the supply for logistics is making a lot more use of machines as well. These percentages are an indicator of how workers have lost the contest with technology in the industry. Many workers are being deskilled and the remaining workers are being reshuffled to assembly lines likely to be automated with time. There should be interventions to ready the workers to adapt to society and the economy, or there will be massive unemployment.

This study attempted to decipher the link between students' input, output, learning environment, challenges, and students' demographic variables at the tertiary level of education. First-year undergraduate students (n = 122) were surveyed with a structured questionnaire. As hypothesized in the input-environment-outcomes model adopted in this study, students' academic input and learning environment shape learners' study outcomes. Findings revealed that learners' academic performance is influenced by students' demographic variables, intellectual input, educational environment, and challenges, but most importantly, an excellent and effective study environment is what makes the most remarkable difference in the learner's scholastic achievement. If an academic environment does not deliver a broad-quality learning setting to its learners, then it fails in its mission. The educational environment has to gain more influence on how their new learners develop, and the university has to be guarded about how they plan to ascertain that these new entrants become agile learners irrespective of their high school background.

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