Conference of the International Journal of Arts & Sciences, CD-ROM. ISSN: 1943-6114 :: 3(02):51–58 (2011) Copyright c  2011 by InternationalJournal.org INTEGRATED NEW MEDIA AND YOUTH: UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN MOBILE 3G IN THE CONTEXT OF DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS THEORY Hasret Aktaş, Mehmet Nejat Özüpek and Hüseyin Altunbaş Selcuk University, Turkey INTRODUCTION Cell phone technology has advanced to unforeseen extents in twenty years. First cell phones could only make voice calls, they had limited coverage areas and they were big and heavy. Today’s cell phones are more like computers that can fulfill advanced communication needs. This new communication tool pushes the limits of cell phones with 3G technology. In this study 3G usage of university students have been examined around the “Diffusion of Innovations” theory. The research has been conducted on the same school and same department, with one year break. The aim of the research is to identify the changes and preferences. This subject is important because it may or may not be parallel to Diffusion of Innovations theory. Because youth are most open and positive about innovations. 3G TECHNOLOGY 3G technology has been put into use in Turkey in July 2009. It a short period of time, it has been embraced and become widespread. 3G technology allows mobile operators to transmit voice and video through mobile networks. This technology allows high speeds of data transfer. Table 1 lists data transfer technologies and speeds. Table 1. Data Transfer Technologies and speeds (Bulun et al., 2004:168). When mobile devices are examined, there are two important compatibility situations. These are UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access). UMTS is the name of 3G technology of Europe. HSDPA can be called as 3,5G, because it is improved version of UMTS. HSDPA allows speeds up to 14 Mbit/s. The necessary connection speeds for different types of usage is listed below. 3G allows speeds more than 2 Mbit/s. Technology Frequency Spectrum Bandwitdh 2G (GSM) 900-1800-1900 9,6 – 28,8 kbps 2,5G (GPRS-EDGE) 900-1800-1900 171,2 – 384 kbps 3G (WCDMA-UMTS-HSDPA) 1900 – 2200 2,000-? kbps 51