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iPod More Popular Than Beer?
prostoalex writes "Whenever someone says college students, the first thing that comes to mind is drinking beer, right? Wrong, says new research by Student Monitor, which claims than in 2006 73% of students it surveyed said iPods were in, while beer drinking and Facebook.com fought for the second place with 71% of popular votes."
Story is about american students. Summary headline should read:
Apple: iPod more popular than flavourless brown fizzy drinks.
(I'll leave the facebook==beer popularity jokes to others:)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
It's not just college students. No, the iPod has absolutely become a phenomenon that I was thinking was perhaps restricted to college students and those of us Apple geeks that were early adopters (I had an iTunes music server made out of an old Powerbook as soon as they released iTunes). However, my thinking has essentially been completely corrected with all the travel I was doing over the past year giving talks and such. On every trip, I saw white earbuds connected to iPods and just last week on the Washington, D.C. metro subway, I counted twenty people in my car alone coming back from the Pentagon who were using iPods of various types, three people with Powerbooks/MacBook Pros and two people with brand new Macbooks. It was amazing and given the performance of the stock market over the past couple of weeks, made me feel much better about the shares of AAPL that I purchased.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
For one thing, beer is never going to be popular with more than 37 percent of law-abiding college students in the United States, where the legal age for possessing an alcoholic beverage is somewhere in the junior year. With an iPod, on the other hand, any college student in the United States can rip CDs and buy DRM'd tracks from iTMS.
No matter how many songs you listen to, she's still gonna be ugly and talk to much.
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
...sandwiches are still more popular than laptops.
Somebody was complaining about this guy having a bunch of sleazy but successful Slashdot submissions the other day. Since I'm too lazy to research it myself, anybody know how this guy gets so many stories up? And is this one self-promoting?
"Free as in iPod"?!? I think not.
I hate to hear this. I think beer will rise again, though!
iPod better than sex; survey of virgins shows.
I didn't realize this was a binary choice!
I just bought an iPod! THE HUMANITY! Beer, I miss thee already!
(heh)
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
Barring underage drinking, it is more likely than not that students over 18 years would vote for beer, while iPod's would appeal to the younger agegroup as well. Infact early teenagers seem to be the target of their marketing campaigns, and people who're more likely to vote iPod over alcoholic beverages.
Given the fact that most students in the country comprise of the 0-18 age-group, and a minority in the 19 and over age group, the results aren't surprising, and infact skewed.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
In other news: John Lennon states "The Beatles are more popular than God."
The margin of error is 2.3% so they are all really tied.
Still whats better than jamming out with your iPod while surfinf Facebook and getting drunk?
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Yeah, right. Which college do YOU go to?
Frack, mine. Guess you have a point.
Informatus Technologicus
I would say that beer is more popular than ipods, but beer has become so cliche with college that it seems that ipods are more popular.
Popular does not necessarily equate to the latest craze.
Bere is waaay mor popoolre tnah podis! I heave noo idia wat ur talkn abowt ociffer....seeriuslee, man.
"...beer drinking and Facebook.com fought for the second place with 71% of popular votes."
You might want to check your math, you drunk facebooking iPod dancing freaks!
Im ny day we studied in college, humming along to an 8 track! And that's the way we liked it!
Not everyone likes beer. The percentage is higher with college females. Why didn't they ask 'alcohol' instead of 'beer'?
It's best to cover all your bases. When you head out to your next class, take your iPod AND a 6-pack. Everyone will marvel at how hip you are. (Except for, maybe, your professor.)
-- dR.fuZZo
Okay... I'm no expert here, and this IS just a "funny" story, so it doesn't truly matter... But in polls like this, aren't the 71% to 73% results well within the margin of error?
Facebook is still "in"?...
Nah, i dont believe that, didn't everyone stop caring after http://www.myspace.com/ got bought out?
College students are so trendy that it should have changed by now.
j^2
I hate beer. Give me a Rum & Coke with a slice of lemon any day.
My RCA Lyra MP3 player works just fine.
You can take the one listening to the 6th song on your slow jams playlist, I'll take a women on her 6th beer.
Once again the education system fails us.
I remember when it took my two roommates and me to scrape together $6 to get a pitcher of cheap beer. If there was a $20 between us, we were drunk and proud of ... something...
:-)
These kids nowadays with their $250 iPods... Sheesh!
There are liars, damn liars and statisticians. I think the folks who would have picked beer were cutting class due to last nights activities and missed the poll.
Listening to your iPod while drinking beer has to be the best, popular or not – right?
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
What do iPods and beer have to do with eachother? This makes less sense than saying that cardboard boxes are more popular than chopsticks.
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
Ogre: NERDS!
According to the article, the last (and only) thing to dethrone beer since the survey started was the Internet in 1997.
Free as in beer.
Free as in the Internet.
Free as in iPods.
Is there a new t-shirt with all the various models of IPODS instead of brands of beer?
Fear... soon the metric will not be Olympic pools of beer drank by college students, but rather Gigabytes or Terabytes of data (music) purchased from ITUNES by college students!
Just another reaon to feel that college students these day are "lacking that quality education we enjoyed back in the day."
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Beer is just such a part of college life that no one thinks twice about it. I mean, is it "in" to wear clothing or is it just something that you do? Sure, there are those who consider clothing (and beer) to be optional (like me), so perhaps a better poll would have been which things are considered more a part of life than a trend which may or may not fizzle out. Beer's not in or out. It just...is.
Now go watch Strong Bad deal with the near-tragedy of Dan, who "almost a one that was not cold."
It's a girl!
iBeer?
I am unique, just like you, and you, and you...
wait, I'm confused.. it's not "sex, beer, unix" any longer?
I thought ipods didn't work with unix...
Mmmm. Weed.
This is a real shame. People with music player 'phones in their ears are so distracted from those around them. On the othe hand, having a beer encourages chat. Personal music (from Walkman onward) has been a de-socialising thing. A chat in the bus queue is so much harder if the next person has ear plugs and a music machine. Contrast this with going to a bar and having a beer. I travel widely by train all over Europe, and the beer in a bar is what stops me talking to myself in the hotel, because there is always someone else having a beer to chat with in whatever language we have in common. I advocate worldwide beer from the age of 18 (going to uni). Beers make friends. Ban personal hi-fi for all under the age of 30. Make the young interact with one othether and make friends! The middle-aged can use their headphones. A
Time is life: speed saves it. LJK Setright
In this case yes. While probably not "well" within it it is covered. In general though it is possible to have a margin of error much smaller than 3%.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
For one thing, beer is never going to be popular with more than 37 percent of law-abiding college students in the United States, where the legal age for possessing an alcoholic beverage is somewhere in the junior year. With an iPod, on the other hand, any college student in the United States can rip CDs and buy DRM'd tracks from iTMS.
I was at one of those schools in a state where the drinking age was 21. What I can tell you is it's easier to get beer than a nice glass of ice water!
People are used to easily availiable beer starting in high school!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here is real life, people under the drinking age are, I assure you, drinking. In fact most of them have been drinking since well before college.
If anything I would expect the 18-year olds to vote a bit more heavily FOR beer, because it is a "forbidden pleasure" still. By 21 it's lost some of the lustre.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I question the validity of this survey. Wouldn't beer-drinking college students necessarily be underrepresented in this type of poll? It's totally not a statistically representative sample of college students if they asked these questions during daylight hours, and even worse, if they asked them before noon.
ipod:431,000,000
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&wo rd1=beer&word2=ipod
How can you have an article like this and not link Google Fight with iPod vs Beer? iPod wins 431,000,000 to 153,000,000!
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
More popular than beer = Ownage x (10)^(10^100). Remember how many of /.ers predicted the downfall of the ipod when it debuted.
Back in the good ol' days it was Beer, Napster, and AIM/ICQ, none of this newfangled iPOD business. We had to walk uphill both ways against raging firewalls to get our digital music. Kids these days have it easy.
I make my own beer....I won't be making my own iPod...
My brain is overly lubricated
I mean, those who make beer their top priority would hardly be able to articulate this order of priorities. Or were available for polling, being drunk and all.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
well, lemmee tell you somethin' missster.. all I know is that I have drunken waayy more beers than i-pods. so whose more pop-u-lahr now!?
ôó
I use both at the same time!!
"hence its disfavour outside of the USA (for the most part). "
Bud is the #1 pacakged beer in Ireland.
http://www.checkout.ie/MarketProfile.asp?ID=2
Beer snobbery knows no bounds. Projecting your opinions on an entire continent just to bolster how you feel about something. Astounding.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Perhaps they avoid it because GoogleFight references are hack, even with the if-it's-a-meme-it's-a-funny /. crowd?
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
... obviously Facebook.com ... when your site becomes as important to your target audience as their lifeblood (alcohol in this case), you have achieved success.
I bet Mark Zuckerberg is glad he turned down that $750 million now... News Corp or Viacom is going to pay billions for a dedicated advertise-to-college kids website that might as well be coded in Crack++. If they can keep opening the facebook up to mobile phones, they might have truly created an advertiser's wet dream... because at that point, college kids everywhere will reach social networking nirvana.
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
well, beer isn't exactly a new phenomenon. it's like saying football games are not "in" on college campuses.
what happens when college kids have way too many iPods...
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
How many of you "early adopters" have Apple II (original, or even II+)? Thought so.
Yeah, I lost my Apple (and its 5 1/4 drives) long time ago. And I don't have any new Apple gear, either.
iPod plays great tunes and lousy video. Beer tastes like jock armpit. The only surprise is that it was such a close race.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I only have one ipod, but every night i have 12 beers....how is this more popular?
given the choice between an iPod and a beer, i'd have to take the iPod
(of course i'd end up hocking it for beer money)
was about 90 percent cool.
Until the staff busts you for posting pics about it while you're underage.
[caveat, I'm staff, I'm on facebook, I drink beer (prefer hard cider, actually), and I don't own an iPod, just an MP3 512MB USB flashcard with headphones]
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If they can keep opening the facebook up to mobile phones, they might have truly created an advertiser's wet dream... because at that point, college kids everywhere will reach social networking nirvana.
...
They implemented that already on Facebook. I like the status update part, right now my status is "pondering why Grey's Anatomy isn't #1 on Facebook in Seattle".
Maybe I should change it to "pondering how to get beer into my iPod"
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Anyone who can say they prefer an Ipod to a beer during their college years (or a fucking website for fucks sake) makes me so so sad.
Have a peanut and die.
I use the white buds indoors. Because, you know, they were free.
Outdoors, I don't want everyone to know I use iPod. That would totally ruin my street cred. I stop short of encasing the iPod in my old 1990s Walkman.
I guess it's an American thing but I've never heard anything about facebook.com... and for the record I'm shure if you ask students in Canada what they are thinking about it won't be ipods...
That now during football games they turn on ipods instead of opening the beers?
after 10 Heinekens it was hard to take part in this survey...
Bring Your Own iPod!
You make a good point. Which party would you rather go to? One with a keg or one with everyone standing around listening to their own iPods? It would be like partying with a group of autistic people. (Note: I've given up drinking, but I like being at a gathering where people are enjoying themselves with alcohol.)
The phenomena you describe is quite interesting to me. I've noticed it not just with personal mp3 players, but also with cell phones and even automobiles. People are creating enclosed realities for themselves with these devices, or, if you prefer, removing themselves from the local social reality by degrees.
A good example is the difference between driving and walking through a neighborhood. Besides the obvious difference of speed of travel, each of the two give a completely different experience of a neighborhood. In walking, the neighborhood is your environment. In driving, your car is your environment.
With an iPod or other player, one is creating a "psychic" enclosure, a mental bubble or buffer between oneself and the social environment.
Without judging whether this is good or bad, it is interesting to ask why people are doing this. Is social reality so stressful and threatening that we need to live (at least partially or part time) in our own little worlds?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
if you ask students at the RWTH Aachen... they'll tell you "Linear Algebra"
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Here in Brazil, where 90% of software is pirated, people dont buy DRMed music. I work in software development, and study in an university for a CS degree, and I never saw an ipod. MP3 players full of pirated music are quite common. I will wait for something that plays OGG files to be sold here.
Living in Europe, I really can't understand this 21 thingy. Here, we can drink beer and wine starting from 16, and harder stuff starting from 18.
Same goes for cigarettes, starts with 16 here. But hey, if you're younger, then there's always a vending machine near you which can't check IDs.
Oh, those were the days, sweet memories and all (or sometimes no memories at all...).
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
I couldn't care less about iPods, beer or facebook, and I'm a University student. I therefore dub this survey bunk.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
I'm currently leading freshmen orientations at a college in the north east, and I heard that fact mentioned today during the course of orientations.
A speaker said that for the first time in 25 years, beer was not the thing college students couldn't live without. He then asked the group what they thought took beer's place. I toyed with the idea of yelling, "VODKA!" but somehow that didn't seem appropriate, being that I'm employed by the college.
This sig is false.
I personally love Miller Lite on a hot humid New England summer day. Not a NASCAR fan but there is a time and place for nearly every brew...except the non-alcoholics which taste just weird.
I have a weakness for the floral hops in Magic Hat brews, although it seems that they use them indescriminately and some styles would benefit from a different type.
Blar.
As far as imports go, Ales lose out to Lagers. There are a few, but for English imports stouts seem to have the upperhand. Germany has a majority share of the imported brews I find here in Connecticut. There are lots of European brews imported as well. Belgian trappist brews are quite popular as well. Alas, even in my favorite local beer super-store (Amity Discount Wine and Spirits) Canadian beer is sadly underrepresented. Only the major breweries are available, and while a decent drink, you miss some of the funky unique stuff that seems to flood in from Germany.
I need to go on a drinking vacation to Germany.
Blar.
Hm. I wonder if the cost of the beer I've consumed is equal or greater than the cost of the beer...Tough, I consume a pretty large quantity of extremely cheap beer.
"Just because you're eloquent doesn't mean you aren't a fucking crackpot." -Wavebreak
Bud.
Bud is usually sold under the name "Bud", due to the unclear ownership of the other trademark.
And in my post I said "Bud", I meant "Bud".
No one would confuse the sales of Bud with Budvar. Even in Europe, Bud outsells Budvar by many orders of magnitude.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Hey, don't bash nerdy university students. I'm an undergraduate currently studying for a research masters level course on neural networks with a beer in my hand (11:25 am) and no iPod or whatever the hell a facebook is in sight. Mind you, I do live in Australia, which might explain my priorities a little.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Masturbation more popular than iPods?
"Bother," said Pooh, as lightning knocked out hi%#&(F*@NO CARRIER
This can't be true! College students drinking beer? I am shocked! SHOCKED! What's next? Smoking?
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us
Look admit you dumb fuck americanos!
:)
You are a bunch of retards
You must have climbed out the abortion bucket
Nobody fucking likes you
Biggest bunch of fucking rearads = Yanks
Yanks = Biggest bunch of fucking retards
Yanks crawled out the abortion bucket
9/11 was a blessing:)
I hope you all DIE soon
No wonder apple sells SO many Apple Care plans. Everyone who uses and ipod is wasted all day. This article just solved the broken ipod issue. It's human error not Apple's fault!
Beer is no way near ipod popularity.
They were probably drunk when they took the poll...
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
...iPod more Popular than Jesus.
I could have sworn it recently surpassed oxygen...
8 tracks? Lucky bastard! Back in my day we had to take the horse & carriage to the concert hall and hear the musicians live if we wanted to hum along with music while we studied!
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
So more than 70 percent sit around on the weekend and listen to iPod's? They can't be cheap, iPod's are too expensive, so they must be too lazy to go the the store.
Google Trends agrees.
The remaining 39% of students were too drunk on beer to answer questions.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
If you want something light for a hot summer day, try a nice plain ale, a belgian wit, a gueuze (on the other hand don't try a gueuze unless you know what you get yourself into)... there are plenty of much better beer very well suited for that purpose.
The only people I can think of that would classify drinking beer as being "in" would be alcoholics or underage people who still think that it makes them cool.
So the real result of this study.. alcoholics love ipods!
Researcher: Hello Mr. Student, would you like an iPod or a pint of beer? Student: I'll take the iPod, sell it and buy 100 beers!!! Thus most students chose an iPod over a pint of beer.
If you aren't far left by the age of 18 you have no heart. If you aren't far right by 30 you have no brain.
... but what is the scientific unit for "in"-ness? How do you quantify "in"-ness? And since when does 1,200 students of the millions in college (in the US) constitute a significant research sample size? What is that -- like less than 1% of 1%? It's not even a plurality of students. Typical uselss reporting. I'd even go so far as to accuse this "research" to be nothing more than Apple propaganda.
"It's only after we've lost anything that we're free to do anything."
But then... they had been drinking.
- Murphy's Corollary: - It is impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
The keys are like right next to each other.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks