September 8, 2006 - SBCC's In A Pod

In the generation that has been defined by what equipment is hip, the iPod and cell phone have become de rigueur. The list of things we need before we leave the house has grown from keys, wallet and watch, to keys, wallet, cell phone, ipod, bottle of water, and some really big sunglasses.

Last year around this time, the dedicated staff of edhat.com wanted to get a handle on kids these days. Back then iPods were seen and heard as a must-have item for anyone under 30. So, we went to a place where we’d expect to find a lot of them (people under 30, that is) - SBCC. Oh those were innocent times! The sun was bright. The sky was blue. And, cheerful News-Press representatives were giving away free copies of their paper to the students passing by.

In our fall, 2005 survey of 200 students, we counted 28 students on the phone and 24 listening to portable music devices (predominantly iPods). We commented that these numbers were low. Ed predicted that this year the numbers would be lower. His thinks that Pod-mania is following in the footsteps of the Walkman; the shine is off that penny. Yeah, it’s great to listen to all of your songs anywhere and share them with your friends, but the thrill of having music piped into your ears for every waking moment of the day maybe isn’t as great as it seemed at first.

Anyway, Ed was right (as usual). This year we only spotted 13 iPods at SBCC. That’s a 38% decline since last year. By comparison, our phone count was roughly in the same calling area. Yesterday we found 26 phones in use, which according to our In House Statistician is only a statistically insignificant 7% drop.

The members of the dedicated staff of edhat.com who were on the scene didn’t keep track of the gender of each electronic device enthusiast, but in was apparent to them that phones are more popular with female students (co-eds as they used to be called), and music players are more popular with male students. We also concluded that there were far more big, bug-eyed sunglasses at SBCC than there were on State Street in our recent count. Those are definitely the preferred EYE-pods of the day.

In yesterday’s contest, most contestants either didn’t review last years article or they didn’t identify the declining trend. In other words, the guesses were high. However, TylerZ was tuned-in to the college electronics scene. With a guess of 27/13, he wins a coveted Edhat t-shirt – something that will always be in fashion (well, according to Ed).

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