Out of curiosity, how do you define a long flight? I've found that most Americans call a flight "long" if it's 4-5 hours. But in my circles -- London-based, doing business in Asia -- "long" means 9-13 hours. Which is qualitatively very different.

(Mind, in those circumstances, a choice between being able to stretch out in business class vs. having WiFi in coach would tilt even harder towards the former. But after about 8 hours in the air, I do find a lack of communications really starts to bite.)

I fly to both Europe and Asia from the US east coast. Yeah it's boring but mostly because I'm more or less stuck in a seat and not because I'm cut off from email, Facebook, and Twitter. Though, for context, I mostly work remotely so not having a real conversation over the course of a day isn't that unusual for me. The boredom of a long flight is more that I can't go outside and walk around or fiddle around in the kitchen than that I can't communicate with someone.