Posted on June 8, 2006 at 1:06 PM in thoughts
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
College students rate the iPod as better than beer, according to a recent Student Monitor study. An AP article notes:
The only other time beer was temporarily dethroned in the 18 years of the survey was in 1997 - by the Internet, said Eric Weil, a managing partner at Student Monitor.
This all made me wonder how the general populace ranks the awesomeness of iPods vs. beer. If college students are almost always ahead of the curve, maybe the rest of America still thinks beer beats the iPod. Running the terms on Google trends, iPods have been more popular than beer for about as far back as the data goes. The iPod/beer gap was at its widest around October/November of 2005. I'm guessing that has something to do with the iPod Video announcement. Maybe if beer had been a little more aggressive with its approach to innovation, it might have stood a better chance. Try downloading an episode of Lost to your pint of Guinness and see how far you get.
To make sure iPods weren't just unnaturally more popular than everything, I ran a Google Trends query on another thing that's popular with most college students. Google has sex as way more awesome than iPods since time immemorial. Do with that what you will.
Where do you stand on this?
Comments
being that i do Atkins and all, i don't exactly drink beer :) i still would have voted for iPod anyway :)
Posted by chris holland | June 8, 2006 2:47 PM
That's exactly how I rank them. Sex, iPod, beer.
I'd probably throw sushi somewhere in between iPods and beer, but I'd guess that I'm in the minority.
Posted by Rob | June 8, 2006 4:46 PM
Now there needs to be a poll about whether books are better than sex.
Posted by Tracy | June 8, 2006 5:12 PM
C'mon people. iPods are better than beer? Sure, I love music too, but where are your priorities?
Posted by Jeff | June 9, 2006 9:31 AM
I'm kind of surprised myself. Maybe my readership is teetotal.
Posted by Dave Coustan (earthling) | June 9, 2006 10:04 AM
I never drink beer, and I don't have an iPod, though I think they're relatively nifty. So I'd rank the iPod above the beer. But since somebody mentioned sushi, I think I'd have to rank that above the iPod.
Posted by Max | June 9, 2006 10:17 AM
I don't own an ipod and I definitely am not a beer drinker, so not to be funny but I guess I'm left off with the you know what..................wishing to have owned an ipod.
Posted by Jonny | June 9, 2006 2:51 PM
Dave, I do love beer. But if I drank at work all day the way I listen to my iPod all day, my writing would be kind of crappy.
Oh, and I might get fired.
Posted by Tracy | June 9, 2006 4:10 PM
OMG.What kind of stupid question is that. everybody knows IPod is better even robots because they would break down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111
Posted by Briana | June 14, 2006 8:08 PM