A shift is happening in the way young Americans prefer to experience entertainment, with approximately 60% of surveyed college students in the US now using their computers most, and not televisions, for entertainment, according to a survey by the Dolby company (http://www.dolby.com).

Now I would argue that this means Apple should consider offering Macs with built-in TV tuners (or bundled with Elgato hardware/software) and Blu-ray. Sure, Macs are selling like hotcakes. But that doesn’t mean Apple can’t make ’em even more desirable.

Of the students surveyed, 77% listen to music on their computers and 70% use their computers to watch video. In addition, 64% watch entertainment on their computers with others (regularly, often, or sometimes), as opposed to just 44%of the general population surveyed.

Of college students surveyed, almost 60% expect most entertainment to be computer-based in the future. In fact, around the same percent would choose to have a computer-based entertainment system if cost and set up were not an issue.

The online survey of 300 college students and 301 general population participants in the US was conducted from June 14–22, 2010 by Penn Schoen Berland. Respondents were ages 16 and over: data for the general population was weighted to reflect US Census data on gender, age, and household income. The margin of error for the total sample is approximately plus or minus four percent.

— Dennis Sellers