iPod beats out beer drinking

Bored with beer? Order up an iPod.

Using an iPod has surpassed drinking beer as the most popular thing to do on a college campus.

According to the spring edition of Student Monitor LLC's Lifestyle & Media Study, which was published last week, Apple Computer Inc.'s portable music device is now the most popular item among America's college students.

Student Monitor, a market research company based in Ridgewood, N.J., surveyed 600 students for the semiannual study.

Students were asked to rate whether an activity was "in" on their campuses.

This is the first time in almost 10 years that drinking beer hasn't finished first.

The margin was slim, with iPods outpacing beer 73 to 71 percent.

In 1997, surfing the Internet overtook drinking beer for half a year.

The other top five activities this time around were using Facebook.com, drinking other various alcoholic beverages and text messaging, with 71, 67 and 66 percent of students rating those activities as "in," respectively.

William Kerr, a scientist at the Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville, Calif., said that the popularity of beer has held steady over the last decade for Americans in general and believes that to be true of college students as well.

"Wine and spirits are more popular in general," Kerr said. "Per capita beer consumption is steady over the last 10 years."

Yet he wasn't shocked that something that has been gaining popularity, like an iPod, could overtake beer because "one of the factors in college drinking is boredom," he said.

With current students spending so much time using technology, there is less time to be bored, Kerr added.

Still, this new technology use isn't necessarily always a good thing.

Penn Sociology professor David Grazian said the levels at which students are using iPods could be detrimental.

Grazian said he is interested in, "the overall effect this might have on the sociability of students in public, especially as more and more undergraduates employ their iPods to insulate themselves from interaction with others."

Using Facebook could have the same effects on students, he added.

"In a way, the users of Facebook.com risk a similar fate, particularly as they expend more energy on their virtual friendship networks than on interacting with their peers face-to-face, in real time," Grazian said.

Some students were surprised that beer got knocked out of the rankings' top spot.

College senior Ben Weinberg doubted the scientific validity of the survey and didn't believe that beer wasn't at the top of the list.

Weinberg said that even if the iPod has surpassed beer, its run won't last long.

"Beer will pass iPods next year for sure," he asserted.

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