Students are willing to give up sex for an Ipad

MOST STUDENTS would give up sex to use smartphones, tablets and e-readers instead of having to use textbooks, according to a study by Kelton Research.

The majority of college students quizzed in the survey, 73 per cent, said they would give up dating and sex so long as they never had to haul a hard copy of a textbook around anymore.

We're sure they don't really mean it, or made the choice while picking up a pile of heavy tomes from the floor, but it seems that students are fed up with traditional means of education, rather than being fed up with sex.

Kelton Research claimed that 71 per cent of college students want to embrace digital books by using a smartphone, tablet, e-reader, laptop or desktop computer. Of course, mobility is important if these are to replace standard textbooks, so desktop PCs are largely out of the picture as a long-term replacement.

The main reasons why students want to dump textbooks, besides perhaps not wanting to study, are the weight of carrying so many around all day and the high costs involved. A quarter of students are hauling 20 pounds of books and other class materials around each day, while 87 per cent have had to cut book expenses due to rising tuition costs.

The average cost of textbooks for undergraduates is $2,400, while a student can invest in a low-cost tablet or e-reader for around $200 to $300 and spend a fraction more on digital editions of course material. Three-quarters of students have already had to cut their entertainment costs to afford their books.

Other problems that crop up with traditional books including missing textbooks, which 20 per cent of students reported, and missing pages, which 16 per cent encountered. The problem for digital, however, is that a tablet or e-reader can just as easily be lost or damaged, possibly resulting in the entire study corpus disappearing, not to mention the fact that the device itself is likely to be relatively expensive.

Other problems for digital studying include the fact that the device needs to be charged and might lose battery power in mid-class. Colleges would also need to provide electrical sockets for students to recharge devices as needed, and this might not go down well with cost-cutting measures in colleges.

It's important to note that the survey was carried out on behalf of Kno, the company behind textbook software for college students. It's therefore not without an element of bias.

Nearly half of college students have cut back on food to pay for their books. Strangely enough, only 19 per cent of students would cut their spending on alcohol to afford their books, suggesting that perhaps beer might be more important to them than food and sex. Yes, you read that right.

If students will vow to abstain from sex to avoid lugging books around, it makes us wonder what else they'll give up sex for, and if they'll hold true to their promise if advocates of abstinence start giving out free Ipads in colleges. µ