I guess it should come as no surprise that the major Internet companies are studying who's using the Internet and how. Never a place for half-measures, Yahoo! convinced 16 households — some 28 people — to give up the Internet for two weeks, and then tell them about.

Yes, they could still use the Internet for work or school; they just couldn't use it in their personal lives. And for their efforts, they would receive $950 — a princely sum in exchange for a little short term deprivation.

But not so princely after all. Recruiters called over 500 people and interviewed over 200 in person, before they could find enough people even willing to do it. For many, no amount of money Yahoo! was willing to offer would convince them to go cold turkey.

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There's a bit of game show feel to the whole thing with counselors standing by and a "life line" you could invoke if you absolutely had to use to the Internet. In all, 35 lifelines were used during the two-week period, 25 of which were related to money. I don't know exactly which money transactions were requested and could only be solved via the Internet, but when banks and financial arms are demanding you go online as opposed to taking the information over the phone, by fax or in person, there's a clear signal that the money landscape is changing.

Part of it is the fact that 137 million Americans are now on the Internet, but there's more to it than that. In another Yahoo! study on women, half felt they were using the Internet more than they were just a year ago, and on average they were spending between a half hour and two hours daily online just for personal use — and even more time relating to their work.

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The do-without-the-Internet study did frame one surprising fact: the cost of not being on the Internet. The subjects found themselves paying $5 extra to airlines for paper tickets, they found that college catalogs cost them $15, and they had to pay to use the teller at their banks. And most telling of all? Their cell phone bills jumped. Besides calling 411 on multiple occasions, their usage minutes actually doubled. It now costs money to be Internet-free, besides facing the challenge of staying informed.

The media they turned to looked just like a decade ago — television and newspapers led the way, followed by more magazine reading and radio listening. While looking up numbers in the phone book, asking for directions, pulling out road maps and faxing documents came back to life, there were also some pleasant side effects: Visiting the neighbors, bicycling and board games, going to garage sales and venturing outdoors.

So it occurred to me: Wouldn't it be great if we could take a once-a-year break from all the technology? A real getaway from our electronic lifelines? But who am I kidding? The truth is I've checked my email from the steamy jungles of South America, made changes to my website from a crumbling farmhouse in the south of France and closed a deal to speak in Fayetteville, North Carolina from my cell phone while climbing the Haleakala volcano on Maui.

If Yahoo! wants me in their next study, they'll have to write a whopper of a check.

I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.

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