Fancy Rich Folk Prefer to Avoid IRL Contact With the Peasant Class

If you feel like your wealthy friend is avoiding you, you might be right. New Shullman Research data shows that rich people (in this case, people who make more than $250,000/year) are less likely to want to interact with their friends and acquaintances face-to-face than us poors are and much prefer online forms of communication that won’t force them to directly interact with the peasant classes.

Use of traditional forms of communication (like the telephone) have waned across all income groups, but have experienced a particular dip amongst the financially well-off. 76% of those who make more than $75,ooo/year claim to regularly use the phone for communication compared to 7o% of those who make over $250,000 and 59% of those who make more than $500,000.

The numbers for interacting in person are even smaller. For the $75K set, 73% had regular face-to-face communication with other people (including friends and non-immediate family) compared to the 70% of the adults who pull in $250K and 59% of adults who earn $500K.

Web-based ways of communication continue to grow in popularity amongst everyone, but the rich have a particular affinity for it and use it to take their business ventures and social obligations online. Linkedin has seen a spike in use, but email remains the most popular way to talk, followed by texting and Facebook (the popularity of Facebook changes wildly based on age).

And look! The folks over at Adweek have made a colorful infographic for you to enjoy while your moneybags pals are too busy to hang out with you, probably because they’ve scheduled a full day of swimming around in their vault like Scrooge McDuck.

Anyway, feel free to shout “Money’s changed you, man!” at your wealthy friends all you want, but it won’t make much of a difference considering that you’ll either be email-shouting (MONEY’S CHANGED YOU, MAN) or yelling at a stoic old butler who promises to pass along your message.

Your Rich Friends Don’t Really Want to See You in Person, Says Report [AdWeek]