Spring Break
The Daily OrangeHoliday hopes evolve from charitable to terrible
By Ed Cox
Posted: 10/23/07, 11:04 PM EST Section: Opinion
Earlier this month, a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) found that Americans rated computers above peace and happiness in their holiday wishes. The fact that peace and happiness came in second place wasn't even news to the CEA. Last year, peace and happiness lost out to clothing for first. Imagine my surprise to find out where peace and happiness ranked among the Syracuse University students I polled.
The good news is that computers didn't top students' lists. Neither did clothing. The bad news is that peace didn't even make the list.
According to an article by May Wong of The Associated Press, the CEA conducts its survey annually in September and asks open-ended questions to Americans about what they want to receive as gifts. The survey also asks about what gifts people plan to give and how much they plan to spend. Their survey was conducted by phone using 1,003 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Computers topped the list of holiday wishes, followed by peace and happiness, a big screen TV, clothes and then money.
I conducted a similar survey of 15 SU students using the survey site SurveyMonkey.com. The respondents to this poll actively joined the survey by responding to ads or e-mails placed on Facebook, therefore this poll is not scientific.
Among the possible responses, computers came dead last in the desires of our fellow students. From this, I conclude that Dell and others have done their job well by marketing laptops to all of us before we arrive at college.
So what is on the minds of the typical SU student when thinking about the holidays? Syracuse has a long history of civil activism. Central New York was pivotal in the suffrage movement and abolition. Recently, there have been several peace demonstrations of all kinds: against the war in Iraq, against government oppression in Myanmar, against the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We even have a Student Peace Action Network chapter on campus.
With all the protest activities around here and the history of the region in general, you'd think peace would reign. And it probably would unless, as I discovered, you list a big screen TV as one of the survey response options.
A third of the respondents picked a big screen TV over both peace and happiness. In fact, happiness barely beat out books for second place. Books! You'd think we get enough of those the rest of the year. Clothes came next. Peace got a whopping zero percent of the vote.
So what does this mean for the peace-minded activists at SU? We need more documentaries and books about peace and happiness. That way, those of us who get what we really want for Christmas can watch them on our new TVs and read about them in our books.
Ed Cox is a biweekly columnist for The Daily Orange. He can be reached at lefthandedelephant@yahoo.com.
The good news is that computers didn't top students' lists. Neither did clothing. The bad news is that peace didn't even make the list.
According to an article by May Wong of The Associated Press, the CEA conducts its survey annually in September and asks open-ended questions to Americans about what they want to receive as gifts. The survey also asks about what gifts people plan to give and how much they plan to spend. Their survey was conducted by phone using 1,003 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Computers topped the list of holiday wishes, followed by peace and happiness, a big screen TV, clothes and then money.
I conducted a similar survey of 15 SU students using the survey site SurveyMonkey.com. The respondents to this poll actively joined the survey by responding to ads or e-mails placed on Facebook, therefore this poll is not scientific.
Among the possible responses, computers came dead last in the desires of our fellow students. From this, I conclude that Dell and others have done their job well by marketing laptops to all of us before we arrive at college.
So what is on the minds of the typical SU student when thinking about the holidays? Syracuse has a long history of civil activism. Central New York was pivotal in the suffrage movement and abolition. Recently, there have been several peace demonstrations of all kinds: against the war in Iraq, against government oppression in Myanmar, against the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We even have a Student Peace Action Network chapter on campus.
With all the protest activities around here and the history of the region in general, you'd think peace would reign. And it probably would unless, as I discovered, you list a big screen TV as one of the survey response options.
A third of the respondents picked a big screen TV over both peace and happiness. In fact, happiness barely beat out books for second place. Books! You'd think we get enough of those the rest of the year. Clothes came next. Peace got a whopping zero percent of the vote.
So what does this mean for the peace-minded activists at SU? We need more documentaries and books about peace and happiness. That way, those of us who get what we really want for Christmas can watch them on our new TVs and read about them in our books.
Ed Cox is a biweekly columnist for The Daily Orange. He can be reached at lefthandedelephant@yahoo.com.
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