If students added up the initial cost of all their electronics, the cost of software and accessories and the cost of the purchases they made using electronics, the total may be surprisingly high.

This is the concern Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, will detail Wednesday during a lecture at the Memorial Union.

“Critics like to label me as someone who hates technology or someone who is too old to use it,” Bugeja said, as he pointed out more than five electronic utilities in his office. “Do I really look like someone who hates technology?”

The problem is not technology itself, Bugeja said, but how people, particularly students, are conditioned to use technology.

Students should take an inventory of all of their electronics, their access (Internet connection) costs, what they are purchasing through their electronics with a credit card, the interest on that credit card and then they will get an idea of what they are actually paying to be a part of a digital world, Bugeja said.

In an ongoing online survey at www.jlmc.iastate.edu, responses have thus far indicated that 20 percent of students have made online purchases during class.

“I want to make sure students are getting the most out of their education for the money they are paying,” Bugeja said.

Bugeja said students have become conditioned to a digital instant-gratification process.

It used to be the student demographic was impossible for marketers to locate and market to. But marketers have found ways, through electronics, to not only to market to, but through GPS technology, know exactly where you are at any given time, Bugeja said.

Bugeja’s lecture is at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.