Surprising
things people would sacrifice to keep the internet
A survey taken by AT&T shows that most Americans give
more value to internet connections than they do to a finger, a human life, a
cure for cancer, and love.
We’ve all heard the term, “I’d cut off my left
arm,” as way to express how much we want something or love something. Other
body parts come to mind, but few of us are serious about actually hacking off a
piece of ourselves, are we?
Last month, AT&T conducted a survey in which
they asked over 2,000 people what they’d give up to stay connected to the
internet and the answers where pretty disturbing.
It’s important to note that the survey wasn’t necessarily
scientific and more for fun. It didn’t account for race, income or location
within the country and can’t really represent American’s as a whole.
That said,
the responses were interesting and might make one wonder if we’ve entered a new
era of civilization that should concern us.
A third of respondents said they would sacrifice a finger
rather than lose access to the internet. Which finger they would be willing
lose wasn’t specified; but, considering that 15 percent of respondents said
they would give up human interaction rather than lose connectivity, one can
assume that the middle finger wouldn’t be of much use.
Another third said they
would be willing to lose their sense of taste, so forget about surfing adult
sites, drinking Mountain Dew and eating Cheetos.
One of the more frightening responses was that 20 percent of
the people surveyed said that they would give up love. Yes, love. That’s bad
news for Tinder, Match.com, and adult entertainment depending on what your
definition of love is.
It gets worse.
Take a look around you and think about that. Think of ten
people in your life right now and consider that five of them consider internet
access more important that a human life and six, or possibly seven of them
couldn’t bear to give up Facebook, even if it meant curing the world of a
disease that claimed 589,430 lives
last year alone.
Not surprisingly men were more willing to give up a
body part (at least a finger) or their morality than women were, and the
younger the person the more value they placed on connectivity.
If that’s not enough to shake your confidence in humanity or
human intelligence, a similar survey
was conducted in 2013 found
that 85 percent of people surveyed would do without water rather than give up
mobile apps.
According to an article in Huffington Post, “The researchers
polled people from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, but their
findings aren’t nationally representative, according to a company
spokesperson, so it’s impossible to tell whether the results reflect the
opinions of Americans as a whole.”
I’m not sure what this says about our society as a whole, but
just looking around me right now it’s pretty safe to say that if I were choking
on a chicken bone, there’s a good chance that most of the people around me
wouldn’t bother to look up from their phones and the ones that did would be
posting the video of my death on Facebook.