Most significant consumer product

1. Automobile
2. Television
3. Personal computer

Television came in second, and its drawbacks too were duly noted, along with its enormous power and influence. "Television was revolutionary in its impact on information dissemination, culture, and politics; the product with most impact on the consumer since the printing press," declared one respondent. "Television is evil and is about where smoking was in the 1950s - we know it's not healthy, but we don't yet understand its true downside," opined another. "Television simultaneously brought the world into our living rooms and removed discourse and intellectual curiosity by making generations of people couch potatoes" was a sentiment shared by several alumni, while one alum intriguingly observed that "television and film create the paradigms of behavior once monopolized by religion."

In third place was the personal computer. As expressed in the following medley of opinions, even though "no product has had a more significant impact on the world of business and trade," the personal computer is "still only a precursor to the 'information appliance' that will allow us more flexibility in choosing where we want to work and play, leveraging our intellect, and making life more enjoyable," a machine that is nothing short of "the greatest leverage of human potential ever developed." "As the commercial world moves from manufacturing to information, the tool is the personal computer," one alum noted, while another confessed that it would be "the first thing I'd take to a desert island." Surprisingly, older alumni rated the personal computer second and the "tube" third, although one older respondent noted that "the pervasive influence of TV has not yet been superseded by PCs." Other products named included antibiotics, the Pill, radio, refrigerators, and flush toilets.

Couch Potatoes and the Open Road

Bill Gates may have been selected as the most influential business leader, but the internal combustion engine beats Windows as an operating system by a mile - the automobile rules as the most significant consumer product of the last 75 years. As one respondent put it, "Building, selling, and fueling the automobile has dominated world industrial development." Another described the car as "revolutionizing the role of transportation in everyday life and business. It made more of America accessible, resulting in the generation of a large number of new businesses and industries."

One respondent observed that "the automobile has provided the means for people to work collectively and live separately, allowing them to choose where they will live, work, and socialize like no other product does. This independence is a core value in the United States." On the downside, however, were comments such as, "Other less mobile cultures have more centralized cities, with tighter cultures and families; the United States has urban sprawl, massively wasteful resource usage, looser nuclear families, and much less sense of community."