Survey: People can't live without high-speed Internet

High-speed Internet is the technology that's had the greatest impact on society and the one that people say they can't live without, according to survey results from Zogby Interactive.

Released this week, Zogby's study found that 28 percent of those polled tagged broadband Internet as the one technology they can't live without; e-mail came in second at 18 percent. Facebook was lower on the overall list at only 3 percent, but among the younger crowd (18-24), 15 percent said they can't live without Facebook.

Looking at technologies that have had the greatest impact on society over the past 10 years, 24 percent named high-speed Internet, followed closely by Facebook at 22 percent. Google came in third at 10 percent.

The results also varied based on gender and age.

Women and adults under 55 tagged Facebook as having the most impact, while men and those over 55 pointed to high-speed Internet. Adults between 35 and 54 were split pretty evenly between the two. People from 18-24 found Facebook the most impactful technology of the past decade, with Google in second place.

Zogby also asked people to gaze into the future to offer predictions for the next year and the next decade.

Many (24 percent of those polled) believe the greatest technological advancements for 2011 will be in home entertainment, with general computing in second place.

Looking further down the road, 43 percent of those surveyed believe science will make regular use of stem cells and cloning to create human organs for transplant by the year 2020. Forty percent think that computer chips will be implanted in people to monitor their health. The same percentage expect robots to be able to perform manual labor jobs. And 36 percent see virtual reality making its way into home entertainment by the end of the decade.

To compile the study, Zogby polled 1,950 adults from December 8 through December 10.

- Lance Whitney

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