University of Virginia: Student Apple Mac ownership up six-fold in past four years; most have iPods

19 years ago

An annual technology inventory of entering students at the University of Virginia seems to confirm both the pervasiveness and the power of Apple’s iPod music player.

Not only did this year’s survey show that 67 percent of the first-year students at U.Va. own an iPod, but it also found that ownership of Apple computers has increased more than six-fold in just the past four years.

For the past 10 years, U.Va. has questioned every first-year student about the technology they bring to school, such as whether they use the Windows operating system or Mac OS X and whether they own an MP3 player or video game console.

This year’s survey of 3,092 first-years found, among other things, that 20 percent of first-years are using Macs. That is up from just 3 percent in 2002.

Overall, 77 percent of the students have digital music players, and iPods represent 87 percent of those players.

Data from more than 27,000 students surveyed over the past 10 years are available on the U.Va. Web site, presented in graphical form:
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/stuserv/ca/cainventory/compare/
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/stuserv/ca/cainventory/2006/

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bob” for the heads up.]

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