Study: Life without Net is unbearable
By Frank Barnako, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 10:35 AM ET Sep 22, 2004
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Researchers investigating how people would react to not having access to the Internet had a tough time getting started. "It was incredibly difficult to recruit participants as people weren't willing to be without the Internet for two weeks," explained Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer of Yahoo, and a sponsor of the study.
All participants found living without the Net more difficult than expected, and in some cases impossible, the researchers reported. Nearly half of those in one of the surveys said they couldn't go without the Internet for more than two weeks.
Sending e-mail, looking up phone numbers, getting directions for a trip, and checking sports scores online, have become a part of daily life. Conifer Research worked with several dozen people who kept a diary of their activities. Regardless of age, income or ethnicity, all said they had withdrawal symptoms and a sense of loss, frustration and "discontentedness."
"The study is indicative of how the Internet has irrevocably changing the daily lives of consumers," Yahoo's (YHOO) Millard said
The studies, by COnifer and Ipsos-Insight, a research firm, were presented Wednesday morning in New York. |
