Almost two-thirds of Australians will spend Christmas Day apart from an immediate family member according to new research commissioned by BigPond, with distance and financial reasons cited as the major contributors to keeping them from one another. Nine out of ten Australians also plan to use technology to stay in touch with family and friends, with the phone being the most popular way followed by email, text message, social networking and video calls. Telstra, 8 December 2009.