Nearly half of the women questioned by Harris Interactive said they'd be willing to forgo sex for two weeks, rather than give up their Internet access, according to a study released Monday by Intel, which commissioned the survey.
While 46 percent of the women surveyed were willing to engage in abstinence versus losing their Internet, only 30 percent of the men surveyed were willing to do likewise.
The U.S. survey, which queried 2,119 adults last month, found that the gap grew even wider for both men and woman who were 18 to 34 years old. For woman, the percentage of those willing to skip the sheets in favor of the Web rose to 49 percent, while it climbed to 39 percent for men.
This says so much about our dependency upon the Internet. Beyond addiction, we are focused on creating a connected world. Asking people to give up email, Facebook, or MySpace would mean giving up social relationships. The Internet is a large part of how we relate.
Being online also is more than information searching. We NEED the Internet to do research, book hotels, make airline reservations, or trade stocks. It is a tool that goes beyond anything we first imagined. Forget addiction - giving up the Internet for average people would be difficult for anyone! It is our reality, which makes diagnosis of addiction tricky when we have come to rely upon online use in our daily lives.
