This article was published on May 18, 2017

Would millennials give up sex for internet access?


Would millennials give up sex for internet access?

I’m not a fan of how the term ‘millennials’ is thrown around, but Ray Chan has good reason to use the word. His company, 9GAG, runs a content sharing platform with an audience of over 80 million people across the globe, and roughly 70-percent of them are under the age of 24.

Speaking on day one at TNW Conference in Amsterdam today, Chan shared some interesting insights from a survey 9GAG conducted this with 100,000 millennials worldwide (essentially followers and fans of the site below age 34) to understand what’s on their minds. It included a bunch of questions that had respondents choose between two crucial choices, such as:

Which would you rather give up for life, internet access or sex?

55-percent of Singaporeans who participated in the survey said they’d choose sex over internet access; meanwhile, only 32-percent of italians would give up sex to go online.

Sounds like your typical basement-dweller millennial response, right? But is that the full story? Chan drew our attention to another question, which asked:

Would you rather give up their right to vote, or give up the ability to share content on social media?

80-percent of people in Germany said they’d want to preserve the right to vote. And 49-percent of respondents from Indonesia said they’d give up the right to vote. The survey team was intrigued by this and asked a follow-up question as to why; some of these people from Indonesia said that they believe that elections in the country are easily rigged, and that it’s more important to keep the government in line by voicing their opinion often, rather than simply voting a single time.

It isn’t easy to pin down exactly what millennials are thinking, but it’s easy to figure out what older generations think: that youngsters are entitled, ignorant and less productive. If you’re keen to understand millennials, Chan says, start listening to them and ask questions before you form an opinion about them.

9GAG’s findings from its survey will be published next month. Stay tuned to TNW to hear about when it’s out.

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