Not tonight, darling, I'm online shopping[ Thu, 20 Mar 2014 05:45:00 GMT ] "Not tonight, darling, I just don't want to listen to you." (Credit: Amazon/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET) I know that Nancy Reagan always encouraged us to "just say no." But it's not easy, is it? Some people can be terribly insistent, nagging even. Some can sulk or get aggressive. Thankfully, it seems that Americans have found a new way to tell their significant others that they don't have a significant mood for sex: they say they're busy online shopping. You might think I'm making it up. And I might think that people who create these surveys are making it up too. All I can tell you is that the cashback rewards site EBates commissioned TNS to perform a study among 1,000 American adults that emitted fascinating conclusions. Some 10 percent of women say they use their mobile devices -- and the excuse of shopping on them -- to deter their lovers from getting amorous. But here's the nugget that might astound even more: 13 percent of men admitted to doing the same thing. I confess that I hadn't considered online shopping as a means of expressing emotions toward another person. I certainly couldn't imagine telling a lover that I wasn't feeling carnal because I was trying to decide which pair of camel boots to buy. And you'll forgive me, I hope, if I mention that survey respondents often seem to have enjoyed a touch too much Bacardi. But for some people mobile shopping has become the equivalent of the invented headache. It brings with it the luxury of not being forced to take a couple of Advil, in the hope that this will somehow lift your libido. This splendidly twisted survey, performed between March 14 and 17, further offered that passive-aggressive shopping is also directed at annoying co-workers, annoying people on public transit and, of course, annoying in-laws. More Technically Incorrect Samsung: iPad's bad, Surface is a joke, and Kindle's a swindle How to issue your own emotional Bitcoin Man, mad at Internet seller, texts him Shakespeare (all of it) Glasshole heaven: Hotel offers free drink if you wear Glass This is how much you get on Google's nerves The original purpose of this survey was merely to examine mobile shopping habits. It seems that 45 percent of Americans use their mobile devices to shop -- and 10 percent claim they do it daily. Perhaps these are the 10 percent who stand in front of me at Starbucks desperately waving their phones at the scanner, only to get more reaction out of the whipped cream on their frappuccino. Tellingly, 49 percent of the respondents in this survey confessed that shopping on their mobile device cures boredom while they're waiting in line. And 24 percent somehow couple mobile shopping with watching reality TV. Perhaps Americans are just frightfully confused. (No "perhaps" about it) In essence, though, what is the difference between sex and online shopping? In the latter, it's much harder to haggle. Related Links:Three important things you should know about cashback servicesWomen prefer Apple, gentlemen prefer SamsungOn Facebook, good (and bad) moods are infectiousCould selfies be pushing more Americans to plastic surgery?When will retailers jump on the iBeacon bandwagon?