Do you consider the Internet a necessity?

[LoriNSC]

It is a neccessity in our house. DH & I both take some of our college classes online. It's the only way to juggle our family life-kids, his FT job, my PT job. I'm a nursing student. Most of my classes are not online but I have to use online for a lot of my material (tests, homework, quizes).

 

[njmom47]

Would not give up internet in my house! Banking, billpay, communication, newspaper, shopping, etc. are done online for me. And with 3 teenagers in the house, even though 2 of them have internet on their phones, we could never do away with it!

 

[Disneefun]

It's a necessity for me to run my business. I'd have to move into the library if I didn't have it here.

That said, you don't have to have to fastest, super huge bandwidth plan out there. We have the "slowest high speed" that our provider offers and it's plenty for surfing and streaming netflix. Sure, we could pay upwards of another $100 per month and have super fast speed, but why would we when the cheaper plan is fast enough?

 

[Mary•Poppins]

It is a necessity in our house. However, if something tragic would happen and we had to drastically cut back, we could live without our home connection. Now my husband uses it for his business which is located out of our home. He has to have it to process payments.

I feel bad for your SIL and the fact that things are financially tight for her. Perhaps you could invite her over to see the video at your house.

 

[ancestry]

Internet is a necessity in my house considering that I teach online. I would cut phone and cable before Internet because the Internet can replace both of those. Internet would be one of the last things to go around here.

 

[Maddle]

I would give up my home telephone before I would give up internet.

After that, I would sell my car.

Then I would get rid of my smart phone. (oh, that would be a sad day.)

And then, if I was still in trouble, I would give up cable television (but I would really have to be in a bind to give that up; like, the last nickel dug up out of the couch cushions.)

Shallow, I know, but internet is the most important service I pay for. (not counting water, sewer and electricity.) How people get along without it I can't imagine.

 

[marie1203]

I couldn't imagine not having internet. I think I will sell our TV before I cut the internet. Just 2 days ago the internet went out it ruin my day! I had plan on getting things done and most of them I had to to them online. We wen to visit DH great-grandma a few years ago and we decided to order pizza she said go get the phone book . Then I realize duh of course she doesn't have internet she was 94. It is funny how use to certain things we get. By the way I recycle my phone phone the next day when I get them.

 

[HALEYSMOMMOM]

You said you texted her- I would (and have) let texting go way before I would my internet go,lol. Everyone has different necessities i guess

 

[Rekenna]

I am able to work from home at least one day a week and sometimes more-this is such a blessing. So, yes, the internet is a necessity for me. If I could get rid of one thing it would be our cell phones-I HATE CELL PHONES! So expensive-yet I will concede it is a nice convenience and is nice for safety reasons. I could learn to live without the cell phone though.

 

[Karenj2]

It's not a necessity, although as others have said I'd cut out other things before cutting it out.

However, for the things the OP mentioned: banking, booking airline, vacations research, trips etc, if my bank account was tight enough that I was considering cutting out the internet, I wouldn't be booking airline tix or vacations. It IS possible to use the internet at the local library for all those things, even if it's a bit inconvenient. (And you can go to the bank to do your banking...)

My BIL and his family don't use the internet (as far as I know) at home. Their only email address is their work email. So, when we want to send them updates about DD, we have to either call them, or mail pictures.

 

[stacy347]

With 4 kids in school, the internet has become a must-have for us. The teachers assign internet projects weekly and there is no leeway for kids who don't have it. You figure out a way to get it done or you get a zero. It's just a different world we live in now.

If we had a library close by I might consider giving it up, but even before our branch closed due to budget cuts we were 10 miles away. We would have needed to go everyday after school, and a 20 mile round trip library visit 5x/wk would have cost more in gas per month than what we pay for our internet.

I also earn lots of GCs doing surveys and projects online, so I think we come out pretty even in the end.

I did cancel our landline quite some time ago, though. It just wasn't worth the extra $50/mo.

 

[DawnM]

Yes. Well, would I physically die if I didn't have it, no, but it would make life a lot harder.

DH uses it for work when he works from home. It is our main form of communication for many things, and when my parents are overseas it is a lifesaver.

Our landline is internet based and $0/month (ooma).

Dawn

 

[Carina]

Between coupons,contest wins, and survey money I make (or save) much more than I spend via the internet each month. Getting rid of it would make no finanicial sense.


(Coupons in this case meaning access to printable free product coupons and save.ca coupons. They are not available any other way)

 

[Sparx]

I'm a college student and I absolutely HAVE to have the internet to do my school work.

 

[NotUrsula]

You said you texted her- I would (and have) let texting go way before I would my internet go,lol. Everyone has different necessities I guess

There is a phenomenon called The Digital Divide: the knowledge gap between those who have ready access to the Internet and those who don't. It was first studied about 17 years ago, and it stayed pretty broad for a very long time based on both age and SES. However, about two years ago the gap based on income started to narrow at an unprecedented rate, and now it is on the verge of disappearing in the U.S. Why? Smartphones.

Younger poor people will move heaven and earth to afford wireless phones, and most of the time smart phone accounts, especially prepaid accounts, will have texting included in the cost. However, VERY few people in this demographic have home computers, and those they do have very seldom are connected to the web. The interesting part is why the difference exists, since a cell phone data plan usually costs a bit more than comparable-speed home internet, and also usually gets less data. The reason is that a cell phone is portable, and people on the street can see you use a cell phone. Having the "right" mobile phone is a portable status symbol, and portable status symbols are usually very important to younger people who are poor. The last number that I saw was that mobile web access penetration has reached 88% among low-income adults under age 35. (Not all of this is smartphones; the majority is actually so-called "quick messaging" phones, but most of those can access the web in a limited way.)

The majority of older people (those over age 70) still tend to be way behind in digital terms, but that gap will naturally close as time goes on. At this point most of them do understand how to operate a computer, but many of them left the workforce before the Internet became ubiquitous.

BTW, I was the victim of an identity theft 3 years ago; our HR records at work were hacked. The ring got about 50 of us, and in every case the type of fraud was the same: they opened multiple cell phone accounts in our names. The police explained the scam this way: they open accounts and then sell the phones on the black market as prepaid, telling the buyers that they are disposable; that when they stop working you just throw them away, but that they are good for unlimited use for 4 months. (That's how long the company routinely let the accounts go unpaid before they shut them down.) The thieves usually sold these phones for about $75 each. In my case the usual bill that was run up on each phone before the account was shut down was about $2-4K. This type of fraud is going away now except in immigrant communities, because now you can legitimately get a prepaid smartphone with unlimited data for $25/mo.

 

[notaprincess]

It'd be very hard to be without internet at home. So no, I wouldn't cut it, but then again, it's included in my compensation package here right now!

I still keep it (without using it) at my parent's in Germany- it's almost the same price as the landline only.

 

[SDSorority]

We wouldn't be able to cut our internet. Part of my WaH job is Social Media management.

 

[furb & dez]

Of all the "elective" expenses I pay each month, access to the internet is the penultimate thing I would drop (if forced). The very last thing to be cut would be our yard service.

I'd toss my cell phone in a heartbeat (though it's really cheap... minimum of $20 every 90 days to keep it active), and I couldn't care less about cable/idiot box (and nearly all of that content is available online, anyway).

 

[Juliet25]

It would be the last thing to go, absolutely. My internet costs $20 a month. I earn at least $10 a month in amazon gift cards just by using Swagbucks as my search engine. Twice a year I sell my kid's outgrown clothing on eBay for $500-750. I usually list a few odds and ends on eBay other times of the year.

Internet pays for itself and provides a good portion of my family's entertainment.

 

[Minnesota!]

For now, yes, it's a necessity. Both DH and I are in school full time and both of us have online classes. The internet allows us to be at home with our family, but still get school work done. Being as we both work 40 hour weeks on top of school...taking time away to be out of the house at night to do school work would suck!