http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4742361Oh my.
DainBramaged (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-31-08 07:35 AM
Original message
Things We Can’t Live Without: The List Has Grown in the Past Decade
Luxury or Necessity?
As Americans navigate increasingly crowded lives, the number of things they say they can't live without has multiplied in the past decade, according to a new Pew Research Center survey that asks whether a broad array of everyday consumer products are luxuries or necessities.
Some of these goods, such as home computers, are relatively recent information era innovations that have been rapidly transformed in the public's eyes from luxury toward necessity.
But other items - such as microwave ovens, dishwashers, air conditioning for the home and car, and clothes dryers - have also made substantial leaps in the past decade even though they've been fixtures on the consumer landscape for far longer.
For example, the percentage of American adults who describe microwave ovens as a necessity rather than a luxury has more than doubled in the past decade, to 68%. Home air conditioning is now considered a necessity by seven-in-ten adults, up from half (51%) in 1996. And more than eight-in-ten (83%) now think of a clothes dryer as a necessity, up from six-in-ten (62%) who said the same a decade ago in a survey conducted by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University.
The Pew survey asked the "Luxury or Necessity?" question about 14 different consumer products designed to help make everyday life more productive, more convenient, more comfortable, more efficient or more entertaining. It was conducted by telephone from October 18 through November 9, 2006 among a randomly-selected nationally-representative sample of 2,000 adults.
Survey respondents placed the 14 items on a very broad range along the "necessity" scale -- with a high of 91% describing a car as a necessity and a low of 3% saying the same about an iPod.
the charts are an image, and hence not bringable over here.
Anyway, to keep it short:
automobile, 91%, down 2% from 1996
clothes washer, 90%, up 4% from 1996
clothes dryer, 83%, up 21% from 1996
air conditioning, 70%, up 19% from 1996
microwave, 68%, up 36% from 1996
television, 64%, up 5% from 1996
automotive air conditioning, 59%, up 18% from 1996
personal computer, 51%, up 25% from 1996
cellular telephone, 49%, not asked in 1996
automatic dishwasher, 35%, up 22% from 1996
cable or satellite television, 33%, up 16% from 1996
high-speed internet, 29%, not asked in 1996
flat-screen television, 5%, not asked in 1996
ipod, 3%, not asked in 1996
http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/323/luxury-or-necessity
Great long article, please read the rest at the link
Oh my.
You know, hardly anyone, if anyone at all, has enjoyed these luxuries in the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants with free medical care for all, and yet these people still manage to survive. So one suspects everything on the list above is, really, a luxury, and not a necessity necessary for sustaining human life.
Unless one is a primitive, of course.
dkf (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-31-08 07:48 AM
Response to Original message
1. Each of those things requires energy to run.
Makes you wonder what we'd do if we can't satisfy our need for energy.
DainBramaged (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-31-08 07:54 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Die
Without energy, we'd be reduced to a minuscule population in a generation. We can't go back, no matter how much some people want to. And I ain't debating that point, I have to go to work, now.
I dunno.
With the coming of the
0bamareich, it's more and more likely there's going to be a massive terrorist attack on the United States--a suitcase nuclear bomb in New York City, a 13-gallon plastic trash bag of cyanide dropped into the water supply of Chicago, a massively-contagious disease unleashed from San Francisco, something like that, causing great civil disorder and disruption--and I'm sure we're all going to be surprised at what we can live without.
Only the primitives need gadgets, to live.
dkf (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-31-08 07:57 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. After my power blackout for 21 hours, I can tell you life without energy is really really boring. As my co-worker said, the only thing to do in a blackout is sleep.
madokie (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-31-08 08:00 AM
Response to Reply #4
6. Or get naked with ones significant other
but you knew that, huh
The silly primitive:
SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-31-08 07:55 AM
Response to Original message
3. I could easily do without many of those
Yeah, right, the silly primitive can easily do without many of those.
franksolich on the other hand already KNOWS he can do without any of these things, all of these things, because franksolich throughout his life already has.....and still managed to live a decent, civilized.....and interesting.....life.
One really doubts the silly primitive can do without.
dkf (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-31-08 08:00 AM
Response to Reply #3
5. I'd put car air conditioning above home air conditioning.
Whoever can't live without their ipod will probably have awful hearing by the time they get old. Oh the irony.
