Every year, AskMen.com runs a special male-behavior study, polling more than 50,000 readers to get answers to one basic question: Who and what is “the modern man?” Some of the results are just as you (and a whole lot of women who will roll their eyes when they hear this) might expect. Yes, 69% of men polled have fantasized about a girlfriend’s friend and more than half of the pollsters (53%) prefer breasts in a C cup.
As a gadget site, obviously the material we’re most interested in has to do with men and tech. As a gadget blogger I’m exposed to an inordinate number of tech savvy geeks who live in a universe of daily technolust. But what of today’s modern man? How do your everyday friends use technology?
Let’s start with the easy questions, shall we? First off:
Q. Which screen do you spend the most time in front of?
75% – My computer monitor
18% – My TV screen
07% – My phone
No big surprise here – I know I log enormous amounts of time in front of a computer screen and I would expect about the same from the general, 18-35 demographic I’d guess got polled.
From here the stats get increasingly curmudgeonly. I’ll spare you a little commentary and list our next few entries as they appear.
Q. Do you surf the web on your phone?
53% – No, never
30% – Only when there’s no computer around
17% – Yes, frequently
Q. Which of the following is your primary tool for staying in touch with friends?
46% – Telephone
29% – Social networking sites like Facebook
25% – E-mail
Q. Do you use Twitter?
87% – No
11% – Yes, occasionally
02% – Yes, I’m addicted
Q. How do you watch your favorite TV series?
49% – Episode by episode as it is broadcast live
24% – On my computer, with the frequency that I download/stream them at
17% – I never watch TV series in their entirety
10% – In batches of episodes as I rent the DVDs
Q. Should downloading music or TV shows be punishable by law?
45% – No, I don’t consider downloading to be theft at all
36% – No, it is theft but it’s not really harming anyone
19% – Yes, it is theft and should be punished as such
C’mon guys, watching live TV? Using a telephone (and not for the internet)? More than half of you worried that downloading music/video could be theft? You sound so upstanding and balanced. In truth, the real surprise for me was how average the results seem. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I suppose it wasn’t this.
The brightest spots of the survey in my mind have to do with communication. Guys are notoriously bad communicators, but we’ve got a few things straight. We know to call each other when we need to talk, avoid Twitter like the black death, and maybe even sit down for some good old fashioned TV time with the guys or the family.
For all the non-tech related results, check out the full release at AskMen. To all the guys out there, well done fellas. We’re making a good name for ourselves. (That’s not to say the rest of the results won’t make us seem, well, less upstanding.)
