When the Internet beats sex

Researchers asked about 2,000 Americans which they’d rather go without for two weeks, sex or the Internet, said Chris Keall in New Zealand’s National Business Review. The survey, financed by Intel, found that 46 percent of women and 30 percent of men “would rather swear-off sex for two weeks than give up the Net.”

As if men didn’t face enough “challenges when it comes to romance,” said Don Clark in The Wall Street Journal online. And the news for men gets worse when you break it down by age group: 49 percent of women age 18-34 favored the Internet over sex, as did 52 percent of women 35-44. Intel didn’t “set out to prove a point about modern sexual behavior,” but their findings are far from sexy.

Men aren’t the only ones getting frozen out here, said Ashlee Vance in The New York Times online. Network and cable TV companies will also be unhappy that “61 percent of the women surveyed said they would rather go without TV for two weeks than lose access to the Internet for one week.” The Internet also beats dining out, clothes shopping, and the gym.

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It’s not only women who prefer “.orgs to er ...,” nevermind, said Sylvie Barak in The Inquirer. Surprisingly, 39 percent of men 18-34 were “willing to take up temporary celibacy,” but only 23 percent of men 35-44 would “rather lose two weeks of sex than losing their, er, connection.”