44% of Russians would rather give up food than their Internet connection

So in case you were wondering why Russians don’t rebel anymore – after all, the financial crisis has hit the country quite badly – it’s all because of the Internet. A recent survey shows that 44% of Russians are not going to give up their Internet connection even if it means cutting down on food. ...

So in case you were wondering why Russians don't rebel anymore - after all, the financial crisis has hit the country quite badly - it's all because of the Internet. A recent survey shows that 44% of Russians are not going to give up their Internet connection even if it means cutting down on food. So, forget the rising food prices, just give people more bandwidth! 

So in case you were wondering why Russians don’t rebel anymore – after all, the financial crisis has hit the country quite badly – it’s all because of the Internet. A recent survey shows that 44% of Russians are not going to give up their Internet connection even if it means cutting down on food. So, forget the rising food prices, just give people more bandwidth! 

Forty-four pc flatly refused to give up use of the internet regardless of their material situation during the crisis. Another 25pc responded that they were willing to stop using the internet, but only if they could not otherwise purchase food. Nineteen pc responded that they could easily give up use of the internet, while 9pc would not do so at the expense of other forms of entertainment. Finally, 3pc of those polled said they would give up internet only if they didn’t have money to buy clothes. 

In Russia, Internet is not only the new opium for the people, it is the new bread & butter too.  Hardly surprising then that Dmitry Medvedev’s blog has just won Russia’s "blog of the year" award…

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com
Tag: Russia

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