Given how correlated these trends are, I am not sure what is changing is the desire for any particular item, but the actual interpretation of the word "necessity". I suspect what is happening is that when financial security is low, necessity is applied as a term close to its actual definition, whereas in times of financial plenty it starts wandering up the scale towards "want".
Slightly off topic, but related none-the-less: something that has always bothered me about "necessities" is that 99% of US households have a TV [1] but at the same time, ~12% are in poverty. [2] How do "necessities" like this tie into poverty?
Spending priorities don't just stop with TV (which is probably the least offender since they can be relatively cheap).
I could drive around neighborhoods in Detroit (as far back as pre-2000) and see a lot of people with houses that were falling apart from disrepair, but they have a decked-out car with gold rims and hydraulics in the driveway... Or the ricers that can only afford a Ford Escort, but add some huge spoiler to it... People spending mounds of money on things that don't matter that much isn't something new.
(The statistic you point out has bothered me for a long time, but it's hard to control people's spending priorities, and it's not like these people are buying new flatscreens with welfare checks. You can drive around any college town during May or August and pick up a working TV for free off the curb.)
If you are poor, TV is probably the only entertainment you can afford. America has lost or greatly diminished almost all its local communities. A poor person without television would need a lot of other local poor people without televisions to start recreating a community where people do things with each other.
(Nobody say "library". I love libraries, but in low-income neighborhoods they're usually less common and less well-stocked. If you can even afford to get there and back.)
The fact that 50% of people still believe things like a TV, Microwave, and central A/C are "necessities" means we have a very long way to go. I guess I can be happy it dropped from 60%.
I would give up Internet before I gave up A/C. I've only seen one home in Tucson well enough insulated to give up A/C, and it was built, brick by brick by the owners, and only had two very small windows.
I'm rather blown away that 49% of 18-29 year-olds consider a land line phone to be a necessity.
I think the last time I had a land line was a decade ago, when I was 17. And I live in the decidedly non-cutting-edge midwest. Even my parents haven't had a land line in years.
When I was laid off a little over a month ago, I was looking for things to get rid of. Even though I have a cellphone, I kept the landline: I knew I was going to be doing a lot of interviews over the phone, and I knew that my cellphone drops a lot of calls and generally sounds crappy inside the house.
[+] [-] frossie|17 years ago|reply
That said, I boggle at the clothes dryer rank.
[+] [-] asciilifeform|17 years ago|reply
Some American towns actually forbid residents from hanging clotheslines.
[+] [-] Femur|17 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_the_United_States [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
[+] [-] pyr3|17 years ago|reply
I could drive around neighborhoods in Detroit (as far back as pre-2000) and see a lot of people with houses that were falling apart from disrepair, but they have a decked-out car with gold rims and hydraulics in the driveway... Or the ricers that can only afford a Ford Escort, but add some huge spoiler to it... People spending mounds of money on things that don't matter that much isn't something new.
[+] [-] Xichekolas|17 years ago|reply
(The statistic you point out has bothered me for a long time, but it's hard to control people's spending priorities, and it's not like these people are buying new flatscreens with welfare checks. You can drive around any college town during May or August and pick up a working TV for free off the curb.)
[+] [-] Harkins|17 years ago|reply
If you are poor, TV is probably the only entertainment you can afford. America has lost or greatly diminished almost all its local communities. A poor person without television would need a lot of other local poor people without televisions to start recreating a community where people do things with each other.
(Nobody say "library". I love libraries, but in low-income neighborhoods they're usually less common and less well-stocked. If you can even afford to get there and back.)
[+] [-] tdavis|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ibsulon|17 years ago|reply
I would give up Internet before I gave up A/C. I've only seen one home in Tucson well enough insulated to give up A/C, and it was built, brick by brick by the owners, and only had two very small windows.
[+] [-] schwanksta|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xichekolas|17 years ago|reply
I think the last time I had a land line was a decade ago, when I was 17. And I live in the decidedly non-cutting-edge midwest. Even my parents haven't had a land line in years.
[+] [-] randrews|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kiba|17 years ago|reply
What is luxury very often become the masses' necessity through free maket process.
[+] [-] krschultz|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] access_denied|17 years ago|reply