Half Of Grindstone Readers Said The Internet Blackout Helped Them Get More Work Done

Yesterday was a day that will go down in infamy. Or rather, darkness. Google, Wikipedia, Boing Boing and thousands of other sites went dark yesterday in protest of two anti-piracy bills that are up for debate in the U.S. Congress. Faced with public backlash after the blackout, some lawmakers are now caving under the pressure – moving away from the bills that are currently making their way legislatively through Congress and reversing their positions. Many members of Congress are using the same online social websites that are against the bills, like Facebook and Twitter, to announce their new-found position. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a co-sponsor of PIPA, withdrew his support via a post on his Facebook page yesterday.

Well it sounds like we won’t have to deal with another blackout at least for some time ,but we asked our readers whether they would be able to survive without some of these sites during the workday. Surprisingly, 50% of our readers said they thought the blackout would actually help them get more work done. Nearly 40% though said the blackout would not provide them with a healthy amount of distraction during the workday. And about 12% said they weren’t on the internet enough during the day for it to make a major impact.

According to Jessica Pearce Rotondi of The Huffington Post, women use social media a heck of a lot more than men. A 2011 PEW Report found that 69% of women use social media compared to only 60% of men, and that women use it more frequently, too — almost half of female Internet users log onto social networking sites daily (48%) compared with 38% of male Internet users. A day-long blackout of Twitter and Facebook alone would have affected women more than men.

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