March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Mainers unfazed by Y2K fears > Poll says residents worry less about problems than people in other states

Many Mainers will not spend New Year’s Eve fretting over the Y2K computer bug. However, some will stock up on food and water, purchase extra gasoline, get copies of their financial records on paper or withdraw extra cash, just in case.

A new poll conducted between Dec. 7 and 11 indicates residents of the Pine Tree State are less worried there will be major problems due to the date change from 1999 to 2000 than people living in the rest of the country. The survey also confirmed what hotel, restaurant and resort owners have been reporting — the vast majority of Mainers will welcome the new century quietly at home or with family and friends. Less than 6 percent of the respondents planned to ring in the new millennium in a public place.

In its Omnibus Millennium Poll, Strategic Marketing Services of Portland focused on events and people of the century about to end as well as predictions for the next. The survey indicated personal computers are playing a bigger role in residents’ lives, both at work and at home. However, Mainers still do the vast majority of their banking and shopping the old-fashioned way.

According to the poll, nearly 60 percent of Mainers now have a personal computer in their household. That is an increase of about 5 percent since September. Almost 76 percent of home-PC owners are linked to the Internet, but only 8 percent of those polled said they did banking online and just 18 percent said they planned to do holiday shopping on the Internet.

Forty-five percent of the Maine work force use computers at their jobs, with 60 percent of those respondents having Internet access at work. Computer use at home and at work were linked to higher income. For example, 81 percent of those earning $45,000 or more annually reported being online at home compared to 65 percent whose incomes were less than $25,000 per year.

When Mainers were asked to reflect on the past, Margaret Chase Smith was mentioned most frequently as the most influential person in the state during the last century.

Not many could agree, however, on who the most influential people and events were in the United States and around the world over the last 100 years. The highest percentages in the poll, just over 20 percent, named Franklin D. Roosevelt, the most influential American; about 13 percent picked Mother Teresa, the most influential world citizen of the 20th century; and about 15 percent selected World War II as the most important event.

Michael Jordan was named all-time favorite athlete by 12 percent of those surveyed, while 6 percent cited Babe Ruth and Ted Williams beating out Larry Bird by three-tenths of a percent. More than 40 percent of sports fans named someone else and 30 percent did not name a favorite athlete.

More than one-quarter of respondents said the computer was the most important invention or scientific accomplishment of the previous century. Space exploration, electricity, the automobile, medical advances and the telephone also were cited.

However, Mainers are split over whether life will be discovered on other planets in the next century. Forty-eight percent said yes, while 44 percent said no.


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