#26 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

Having grown up with MP3s and iPods, they never listen to music on the car radio and really have no use for radio at all. (Class of 2016, #15)

They have had to incessantly remind their parents not to refer to their CDs and DVDs as “tapes.” (Class of 2016, #29)

Their parents’ car CD player is soooooo ancient and embarrassing. (Class of 2017, #57)

One of the recent conceits on the Beloit Mindset List is that not only do matriculating college students use newer technology than their parents, but this difference is a source of conflict, confusion and embarrassment.

The item from 2016, suggesting that parents are confused by CDs and DVDs and call them “tapes,” is one of my candidates for dumbest entry in the history of the Mindset List. Compact discs have been around since the 1980s and DVDs since the 1990s. The parents of the Class of 2016 are very familiar with them. And even if they weren’t, why would they call them tapes? Is this supposed to be funny?

The item from the Class 2017 list claims that having a CD player in the family car is embarrassing. As of 2013, there are still new cars with CD players. Cassette tape players weren’t discontinued until 2010 so probably plenty of members of the Class of 2010 have those as well.

You would think that Messrs. Nief & McBride would have done more research on the topic of car audio systems since they actually corrected an item on that topic a year earlier.

Item #15 for the Class of 2016 originally read “Having grown up with MP3s and iPods, they never listen to music on the car radio and really have no use for radio at all.” Critics pointed out that there is actual data that disproves this claim:

The fact is, nearly 90% of all 12-24s in America listen to broadcast radio every week.  That’s documented by Arbitron’s national numbers.  More than 22 million 12-17 year-olds listen to radio every week, while nearly 27 million 18-24s – the “college years” demographic – are still tuning in AM/FM radio even though they have iPods, smartphones, and tablets available to them. (What’s On Your Mind(set)?)

This resulted in Messrs. Nief & McBride changing #15 to read: “While still fans of music on radio, they often listen to it on their laptops or replace it with music downloaded onto their MP3s and iPods.” (The introductory text still reads, “In these students’ lifetimes, with MP3 players and iPods, they seldom listen to the car radio.”)

This correction raises several questions: (1) How many times have items on the Beloit Mindset List been corrected? (2) Why aren’t the Mindset List items that have been proven wrong on Beloit Mindlessness being corrected? (3) Why did the Mindset List duo make up a ridiculous fact about car audio systems just a year after they were caught making up another one?

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