I remember the first time I ever voted. It was the presidential election of 1984. I was only 12 and it was a mock election, but I voted and I felt important. Looking back it seems foolish and stupid to ask a bunch of third-graders who they would support for president if they could vote, but they still asked us.

Of course, being in Minnesota, Walter Mondale got the most votes at my school. I remember that because I voted for him too. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t know much about the election, other than my parents really liked Ronald Reagan. All the kids on the bus said that they were going to vote for Mondale, so I did too.

But as we know, Mondale won only Minnesota and the District of Columbia and garnered a miserable 40.9 percent of the vote, losing the election to Reagan.

While I understand the whole point of the mock election was to teach us about voting and elections, I remember thinking it was silly at the time. I’m not old enough to vote, so it really doesn’t matter who I would vote for. But most of the kids were really excited about it. They made signs that read “Mondale-Ferraro in ‘84,” or “Reagan-Bush For The Future.” I can remember one kid even made a sign supporting John D. Anderson, a third-party candidate leftover from 1980.

I remember the mock election of 1984 because someone I thought it was cool my opinion actually mattered. After all, here I was, just a 12-year-old, but someone asked me who I would elect president and it actually mattered what I thought in the grand scheme of things. Or it seemed like it did.

It used to be that having vast wealth or an important job made you seem more important and that made your opinion have value. In 1984, a newspaper might run a story about what Lee Iacoca thinks of the future of the auto industry.

But in 2001, that same story might be titled “73 percent of those polled have optimism for the future of the auto industry.” The opinion of Iacoca, obviously an expert, doesn’t seem to matter as much.

Instead, any fool with a computer can now log onto the Internet and participate in an online poll, or post a note on a message board. He can leave the experience feeling as if his opinion had value. But, like during mock election, does it really?

We have become a nation consumed by polls and surveys. I read newspaper stories about some percentage of Americans think this, or three out of four Americans think that. Nearly every Web site you can visit will have some type of poll on its front page. I did some surfing around the other day and was asked such questions as, “Who will win tonight’s Yankees-A’s game?”, “Are you afraid of contracting anthrax?” or my favorite, “Do you think the U.S. should stop bombing Afghanistan?”.

But what difference does it make what I think? I’m not afraid of contracting anthrax, but does that make me safer? Can I really make the Yankees lose? I am not the president, so does it really matter what I think about the bombing campaign? If I answer the poll that I think the United States should stop bombing, is the president going to suddenly change his mind? If I answer that bombing should continue, does that make it so?

While I’m not preaching apathy, it would be nice to live in a world without pointless news stories about polls and surveys. If fewer people go to beaches because they fear shark attacks and the tourism industry suffers, that makes the news. But otherwise it doesn’t matter if 73 percent of people surveyed say they fear being attacked by a shark.

The true danger of our poll-driven society is that while we endlessly seek everyone’s opinion, we are actually encouraging people to not have one. Imagine a future presidential election between George W. Bush and Bill Bradley. If a newspaper runs a story a couple of days before the election about how 68 percent of people polled favor Bradley for president, many people might be swayed from voting because the perception is that their vote for Bush doesn’t matter. It’s already a done deal. If CNN runs a story about how only 33 percent of people plan to buy a new car in the next year, many people might think twice about buying a car.

Our media has made us a nation of sheep, worried less about what actually happens and more about what everyone thinks about it.

If I could, I would go back to 1984 and switch my vote to Reagan. After all, that’s what 59.1 percent of everyone else did.

Jack Flakne is a 1995 MSU graduate and Haslett resident. He can be reached at jackflak55@yahoo.com.