1
e ye
on
consumers
A
report
from
New
York
and
Toronto
Consumer
Marketing
october
09
A
monthly
installment
of
facts,
observations
and
trends
about
consumer
groups
TECHNO
REBELLORS
Buzz
surrounding
techno
rebellors
this
month
proves
that
one
cannot
escape
the
digital
age
no
matter
how
hard
they
try,
and
those
who
try
end
up
getting
sucked
right
back
in.
An
October
15
story
in
The
Washington
Post
profiles
people
they
label
as
social
networking
“refuseniks.”
These
“refuseniks”
come
from
all
walks
of
life
and
are
not
pigeonholed
to
one
demographic
–
a
dancer
in
her
20’s,
a
graduate
student,
and
a
rapper/hip‐hop
singer
round
out
the
group.
These
“refuseniks”
like
to
assert
a
superior
stance
on
valuing
face‐to‐face
communication
and
privacy
(one
even
declines
to
give
her
real
name
in
the
article,
suggesting
a
near‐obsession
with
privacy).
Interestingly
enough,
these
adamant
“refuseniks”
end
up
relying
on
friends
or
relatives
who
are
members
of
the
very
sites
they
protest
to
keep
them
in
the
loop
on
messages,
posts
and
events.
One
woman
even
calls
herself
her
husband’s
“Facebook
secretary,”
often
replying
to
messages
on
her
account
from
his
friends
about
her
husband’s
whereabouts.
Still
Facebook
and
Twitter
continue
to
attract
users.
The
article
reports
that
in
August
2009,
MySpace's
monthly
traffic
dropped
to
about
64
million
unique
monthly
U.S.
visitors,
while
Facebook's
numbers
have
soared
to
92
million
and
Twitter
numbers
have
exploded
to
more
than
20
million
(up
from
1
million
last
year).
In
the
meantime,
a
mid‐30’s
blogger
in
Baltimore
documented
a
week
she
went
cell
phone‐less.
After
her
cell
phone
broke,
she
decided
to
forego
a
phone
until
it
was
fixed
and
in
the
meantime
embrace
her
former,
more
traditional
ways
of
communicating.
She
lasted
a
week.
After
missing
many
important
messages,
meetings
and
crucial
Facebook
and
text
message
updates,
she
caved
and
decided
to
welcome
the
technology
and
conv