Women Prefer Plasma TVs Over Diamonds?

If you held in front of your wife, sister or mother a little blue box containing a diamond solitaire necklace and a cardboard crate with the words “Plasma TV” posted on its side, which would they be more likely to choose?

If the preferences of the women in your life match those of most females surveyed by market research firm TRU, they’d leave the blue box and the diamonds by the wayside and grab hold of the TV.

The survey—called Girls Gone Wired and commissioned by the Oxygen Network, a female-owned-and-operated cable TV channel—found that more than three-quarters of the 1,400 women queried would choose a plasma TV over a diamond solitaire necklace, Reuters reports on Boston.com.

TRU and Oxygen also found that on average, women are becoming more comfortable with the majority of new technologies, Reuters reports.

Geraldine Laybourne, Oxygen Network chief executive, told Reuters, “People make the assumption that women are not as advanced as men when it comes to technology, and I was surprised at the parity men and women now have in terms of technology.”

According to Reuters, the survey also found the following:

• On average, women own 6.6 technology-driven devices, while men have 6.9.

• 80 percent of women feel comfortable with new technologies.

• Nearly half of the 1,400 women surveyed perform their own computer troubleshooting procedures.

• 77 percent of females queried would rather have a new plasma TV than a diamond solitaire necklace.

• More than half of the female respondents would pick a plasma TV over a two-day vacation in Florida.

• 86 percent of the women surveyed said they’d pick a new digital camera over a new pair of designer shoes.

Some 1,400 women and 700 men between the ages of 15 and 49 were queried as part of the Girls Gone Wired survey, Reuters reports.

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