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Survey: For Brits, Facebook is more important than a flushing toilet

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toiletA survey has found that for the British, being on Facebook is more important than a cup of tea, a shower, or perhaps most startlingly of all, a flushing toilet.

The Science Museum in London conducted the survey by asking 3,000 adults what things they couldn’t live without. Facebook turned up in fifth place, beaten only by sunshine (top spot), an Internet connection (2), clean drinking water (3) and a fridge (4).

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The toilet took ninth spot, tea eleventh and the shower thirteenth. Facebook was also considered to be more important than having a mobile phone (10), Google (22), a flat-screen TV (31), a Wii console (44), an iPad (45) and Twitter (50).

“Crazy” was the word the museum’s exhibition manager, Sarah Richardson, used to describe the results.

“Brits are obsessed by the weather, so it’s not surprising sunshine was rated as the top thing we couldn’t live without,” Richardson told the Daily Mail. “But to say you can’t live without material things over drinking water is crazy.”

The survey was conducted as part of a new exhibition at the museum – Water Wars: Fight The Food Crisis – which highlights new technologies being used to tackle the problem of water scarcity.

“It seems having fresh drinking water is something that many of us take for granted but is becoming scarcer in many parts of the world. If you see how little water others have to drink or grow food you soon realise water is fast becoming a luxury for millions,” Richardson said.

Facebook’s high position goes to show just how much a part of our lives the social networking site has become since it launched a mere seven years ago. According to the company’s own statistics, Facebook now has more than 750 million active users with people spending more than 700 billion minutes on the site each month.

Here’s the full list from the Science Museum survey:

1.Sunshine 2.Internet connection 3.Clean drinking water 4.Fridge 5.Facebook 6.NHS 7.Cooker 8.Email 9.Flushing toilet 10.Mobile phone/smartphone 11.Tea and Coffee 12.Washing machine 13.Shower 14.Central heating 15.Painkillers 16.Fresh vegetables 17.Vacuum cleaner 18.Kettle 19.Sofa 20.Shoes 21.Fresh fruit 22.Google 23.Car 24.Hair straighteners 25.Public transport 26.Laptop 27.Chocolate 28.DVD Player 29.Wristwatch 30.Make-up 31.Flat-screen TV 32.Wedding ring 33.Tumble dryer 34.Bottled water 35.Ebay 36.Bicycle 37.Ipod 38.Air conditioning 39.Disposable nappies 40.Light bulbs 41.Spell-check 42.Sat nav 43.Push-up bra 44. Nintendo Wii 45.iPad 46.Gym Membership 47.Season ticket to your soccer club 48.Freezer 49.Xbox 50.Twitter

 [Image courtesy of Péter Gudella / Shutterstock]

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