You and the World #2: Continue to Buy American!

In my first post, I detailed why you should buy American made products. I explained that buying domestic will support fair labor practices, keep money in the American economy, and incentivise more companies moving manufacturing in the United States. You can find the entirety of my first blog post here.

Since that post, I was tasked with doing some independent research on the subject of buying American. I decided to put out a survey on my topic, because I thought my issue was not getting enough attention. I promoted my survey using Canvas, which is a program used by Science Leadership Academy’s teachers to organize our assignments. I sent all my fellow students a message through this program explaining what I was doing, with a link to the survey. You can find the results of the survey here. This is required reading for the next paragraph, where I will be analyzing and talking about the survey results. You can skip it if your mouse-using hand is overworked, or a series of small children claiming to be related to you have demanded food and money, or religious/political reasons.

Firstly, there’s a major flaw in my survey I’d like to point out for honesty’s sake. Since I used Canvas to distribute my survey, I am catering to a very small demographic. The results of my survey can only be used to determine the thoughts of high school students, male and female. Anyways, back to the analysis. I found that although the survey-takers seemed to know what they should do regarding the subject, they didn’t know why. As for Question 1, “Do you pay attention to where the things you buy are made?” the survey-takers were split 59%-41% in favor of not paying attention.

Why might this be?

Well, Mr. Theoretical Question Asker, there are a number of reasons why the survey-takers don’t pay attention to the origins of their products. First could be the demographic problem I outlined earlier. According to this study, 60 percent of teenagers do not pay attention to the news, compared to 23 percent of adults over 30. This could (in theory) lead to general ignorance about current issues. However, there is a more likely factor. This issue has only recently gained traction, which means it did not get much publicity, so people were not thinking about it. It’s significantly easier to think about an issue when you’re constantly being reminded.

Now that I have done my independent research, I have a better idea of what people already know about the subject, and can now tailor future posts so that I am not reiterating what everyone else is saying. I want to provide new information and make sure I’m not wasting your time.