O impacto do iPod na juventude

 

"It's a good reason never to grow up," said Cary Silvers, vice president for consumer trends at Roper Youth Report, a nationwide poll from NOP World, a consumer research firm, which recently found that 18 percent of boys aged 13 to 17 surveyed owned an MP3 player, and that 37 percent owned a DVD player. But only 10 percent of the teenagers had a job, and on average they netted only $29 a week. (...)IT is no secret that Apple's sleek iPod, costing $99 to $449, has become, to the American teenager, a de rigueur fashion item, not just a handy gadget. "The iPod blew up the category," said Sharon Lee, a founder of Look-Look Inc., a company in Hollywood that tracks teenage consumer behavior. Not only did Apple's MP3 player "open a category that just didn't exist before," she said; it changed the way teenagers thought about gadgetry. But the iPod is not the only object of great desire. "In the last couple of years, there seems to be a shift in badge items," said Michael Wood, a vice president at Teenage Research Unlimited in Northbrook, Ill., which tracks youth buying patterns for more than 150 companies. "Whereas in the past it was an expensive pair of shoes or jeans - something on the fashion side - today the excitement and buzz is really around technology." (...) Melea Smith, of Naperville, Ill., explained why she caved in to demands by her daughter, 18, and her two older sons to supply them with the obligatory cellphones. "My kids' friends were pestering me, saying: 'What are you doing? They have to have cellphones,' " she said. "It's not that it's the cool thing. It's the must-have thing." Ms. Smith's daughter, Sarah Ross, also acquired an iPod recently. ("In one of my classes someone had one," said Sarah, a senior in high school. She recalled looking it over "for a half an hour" one day.) Next she needed a new laptop to go along with her iPod. "She was bugging me and bugging me," Ms. Smith said. "It's always the argument that she would be a better student, she could take it anywhere, she could take it to the library," Ms. Smith explained with a chuckle. "You see how it goes." (...).

fonte: New York Times, 'But I Neeeeeed It!' She Suggested, By ALEX WILLIAMS, Published: May 29, 2005