What does the Facebook Generation do when Internet and Cell Phones are gone?

On the daily commute I usually listen to The BBC News Hour. Yesterday they reported that Egypt Shut Off All Internet Access and all cell phone cariers.

Seems the "Facebook Generation", as the news reports have referred to the protesters, are not happy about lack of having good paying manufacturing jobs. Hmm... Better places around for that discussion.

I bring this up here in the Embedded Space because of the connectivity issues. For example EETimes is reporting Cellular modules for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications will reach over 100 million in 2015. Related areas of connectivity are eHealth, such as The 4 "-e’s" of eHealth: connectivity, conformity, usability, security by Jennifer Hesse and Dr. Joseph Kvedar's related Keynote at the 2010 Connected Health Symposium.

My question to you is what happens when Internet and Cell Phone technology is gone? We could go back to FidoNet on Plain Old Telephone lines, or Amateur Radio always the communications of last resort because the Hams look forward and prepare for this kind of service.

Keep in mind that some are adopting Sinclair Lewis's 1935 classic It can't happen here as their modern planing book, rather than seeing it as classic literature:

..."Nonsense! Nonsense!" snorted Tasbrough. "That couldn't happen here in America, not possibly! We're a country of freemen."...