Better work tech is more highly valued than having a better sex life for 37% of working Americans.

Opting for a better way to automate routine work tasks over a better sex life was the preference of more than a third of adults who took a survey commissioned by Built.io and Wakefield Research. The June 2016 survey asked 1,026 working Americans ages 18 or older which was more important.

Interestingly enough, priorities varied a bit when age or gender was taken into consideration. A better sex life was more important than better work tech to 69% of Gen X respondents, ages 36-51, compared to 60% of Millennials, ages 18-35, and 62% of Baby Boomers, ages 52-70.

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And among women of all ages, 44% said they’d rather have a better way to automate routine work tasks, such as booking meetings, than having a better sex life. When men were asked the same question, only 30% said better tech was more important than better sex.

The survey showed how important tech is to millennials in particular. “Millennials would rather lose their car than their phone. They’re 2.5 times more likely to be early adopters of new tech,” said Jeff Fromm, president of Futurecast, a Millennial marketing consultancy firm in Kansas City, Missouri.

Or an easy answer, Fromm said, is that “maybe Millennials have a good sex life already.”

He said he was surprised at the survey’s outcome, but he thinks that it’s because tech simplifies lives, and that’s important to everyone in their work and non-work lives.

Other topics in the survey included questions about drones, data privacy and automated cars:

  • According to the survey, 50% of Americans would trade their contact information (28%) or health information (22%) in exchange for automating their household chores.
  • In the next 10 years, 30% of Americans would like drones to deliver them food from their favorite restaurant and 24% would like for drones to do their grocery shopping.
  • In 10 years, 36% of Americans estimate an average of 21% to 50% of the car-driving experience will be automated. And 21% expect more than half of it to be automated. Only 8% think that no aspect of driving will be automated in 10 years.

Nate Derbinsky, a faculty ambassador to Accelerate, the Wentworth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, said that his work with students has made him more aware of how important tech is to Millennials in particular, and how quickly they become disenchanted with what’s available to them in the workplace.

“They’re finding that university and business and so forth have infrastructure in place that hasn’t kept up speed in most cases and they’re ultimately dissatisfied with what they see coming out and comparing what exists on their mobile devices to what they see in their workplace and school,” said Derbinsky.

“Students know they can use various services to schedule meetings and almost immediately be able to comment with their friends and arrange things but then they have to go through an antiquated system to get a transcript or sign up for a class,” he said.

So this makes them more likely to choose better tech over a better sex life when the question is posed in a survey.

And Fromm pointed out one important consideration. “The other thing to consider is that questions like these are sort of fun questions. It’s not necessarily wildly accurate.”

He said, “the theme is that useful is the new cool, and digital, social and mobile tech enables usefulness. People want to simplify their lives and that’s a driving root cause.”

The 3 big takeaways for TechRepublic readers

  1. 40% of Millennials prefer better work tech to a better sex life
  2. The preference for many is to simplify their work and personal lives with digital, social and mobile tech
  3. 21% of Americans think that more than 50% of the car-driving experience will be automated in 10 years

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