[Consumers Can't Live Without it]
Consumers are becoming more fully engaged with the Internet. It is becoming an indispensable part of their everyday
lives. The recent Internet Deprivation Studyconducted by Yahoo! and advertising agency OMD showed just how difficult
it is for consumers to survive without the Internet. Participants in the ethnographic study were asked to abstain from using
the Internet for two weeks and to keep a journal of the experience. According to the researchers, recruitment for the study
wasn’t easy, an indication in itself of the users’ attachment to the medium. A related study conducted by Ipsos-Insight found
that when consumers were asked to choose only one type of media to take with them to a deserted island, an overwhelming
majority, 64 percent, would choose a computer with Internet access (Figure 1).
Many of the participants in the first study reported they felt frustrated and bored and experienced symptoms of withdrawal
when they were deprived of the ability to email, surf, and chat via instant messaging. Participants also said they felt disconnected from their friends and family. Given this evidence of the psychological ties and behavior of online consumers, it is
clear that quantifying usage alone is too simplistic a metric for evaluating the importance of the medium; engagement is fundamental to understanding the relationship between consumers and the channel.