Americans want experiences, not things, American Demographics magazine maintains. ”The growth of our economy is no longer driven by the desires of consumers to accumulate goods,” James Ogilvy writes. ”It is driven by the consumer`s quest for vivid experiences.”
”People travel to experience a place,” Ogilvy says. ”They smoke, drink or take drugs to alter the quality of experience.”
To support his contention, Ogilvy, director of research for the Values and Lifestyles Program of the SRI International think tank, points to a couple of statistics: Between 1960 and 1980 the number of passports obtained for pleasure or personal reasons tripled, growing from 673,000 to 2.1 million annually. In the same period American spending on overseas travel leaped from $2.6 billion per year to $16.5 billion, and attendance at national parks almost quadrupled.
In addition, the number of amateur softball players, golfers, tennis players, musicians, painters and dancers grew significantly.
Even material possessions are taking on an experiential quality. We buy them for the experiences of ownership, he says, citing Toyota`s ”Oh, what a feeling!” ad campaign as an example.
Any more, Ogilvy asserts, we seek out only information that we can relate to an experience. ”`The Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl in 1986,”` he writes. ”That sentence may look like information, but it is not. To be information, it must make a difference to someone.”
Believe me, Mr. Ogilvy, it does.
Parasites
The National Institute of Justice says that the public, relatives and friends of a daily heroin user will contribute about $7,000 to the addict each year in the form of cash, shelter, meals and public transfer payments, such as welfare or the cost of keeping the junkie in jail.
Class consciousness
Teachers in Chicago`s Catholic high schools are more democratic and trusting in the way they run their classrooms than their public school counterparts, who tend to be more concerned with maintaining order, a Loyola University study shows.
Frederick C. Lunenburg, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies, questioned 56 public school teachers and 48 Catholic school teachers, as well as students, to reach his conclusions.
Lunenburg found a relationship between a lack of authoritarian behavior by teachers and a positive learning environment in the classroom.
Consequently, he says, ”any change or improvement in Chicago high school education will be hampered unless administrators look at teachers` discipline styles.”
Crammed in
According to National Geographic magazine, the average family of four in Tokyo occupies 700 square feet of living space.
