A paper products exec once boasted to anyone who would listen, at a cocktail party, that his company was recession-proof. The secret?

“Our disposable diaper manufacturing lines can be re-tooled in under two hours to make sanitary pads,” he explained. “People may stop using disposable diapers or disposable dusting refills or paper towels when money gets tight. But history proves that the last things women will give up are lipstick sanitary pads.”

But what technologies do people consider essential in these troubled economic times?

As the Winnipeg Sun reports, a new study by Toronto-Based Solutions Research Group discovered that the technology that’s most important to the average consumer is Internet access — followed, in order, by DVD rentals, phones and video games.

Among the things people were most willing to give up: concert and sports event tickets, movie tickets, magazine subscriptions and pay-TV services.