Men & Women Use the Internet Differently

Over the past 10 years or so, as more women have made names for themselves online, becoming a bigger and better part of the ecosystem, I’ve noticed that the differences in how my daughter works and how boys her same age work are dramatically different. I’m aware that this notion a male-centric, loaded statement. However, from my ad hoc, anecdotal observations of parenthood and in observing online relationships, it’s clear that men and women “go online” in different ways.

Since November of 2009, I’ve been extraordinarily lucky in being up close to a largely female community, the one my wife and I launched and continue to be awed by. We’ve been amazed at how complete strangers have introduced themselves and interacted. The stories are incredible and uplifting. I’m not saying that men couldn’t do similar. But the way in which women have interacted is different. Without question. And it’s fantastic.

This morning I got this link in my inbox from a newsletter and thought to share it:

What Men And Women Are Doing On Facebook

of note:

However, women don’t just visit different sites from men, they use social media differently than men. Experts believe the difference between how men and women operate online mirror their motivations offline. While women often use online social networking tools to make connections and share items from their personal lives, men use them as means to gather information and increase their status.

And later:

On message boards and forums, Kahn says that both sexes seek information and advice, but women tend to get more personal. She says women want to learn about real people experiencing similar conflicts. “Women are online solving real-life issues. If I’m a mom who is about to start potty training, it’s important to me to hear how other real moms are doing it,” says Kahn.

Boom.

  • linuxchik

    now i just hope for more women to come into the development side of internet technology. the male competitiveness they talk about in the article can be annoyingly aggressive and repetitive ( especially at programming conventions ).

  • http://aredeaf.blogspot.com Coelecanth

    Gah, I hate this kind of thing. I want these articles to link to the study or studies that prove their assertions. Until a broad scope study is completed, peer reviewed and published all we’re doing is speculating. It’s not that you or the people cited in the article are wrong Jon, but all of these accounts are anecdotal and as such are not proof. The problem with anecdotal accounts is that they are very susceptible to conformation bias. People observing their environment in a casual way tend to search out and remember things that confirm their current views. This is a well known phenomenon that proper studies mitigate against.

    There’s so much nonsense about gender in our culture that unsupported speculation seems to me to be very unwise. We don’t need more myths about the supposed difference between men and women, we need more *facts* about those differences.

    I was going to use the following example of conformation bias perpetuating a gender myth:

    From the article: “Today, women are still more likely to be forthcoming and verbose than men..”

    Okay, forthcoming maybe, I don’t know for sure about that. However, there’s been a recent study that found that the verbose part of it might not be true.

    Unfortunately I can’t for the life of me find where I read about the study were men and women were wired up to study word counts over an extended period of time. This study found no statistically significant difference in verbosity between the genders. Because I can’t find it I’m not going to claim that the notion that women talk more than men is false. But unless I’m losing my mind and didn’t really see that study I’d say that the jury is still out on that notion.

    • http://blurbomat.com blurb

      The study quoted in the original article is here:

      http://www.blogher.com/files/Social_Media_Matters_2010.pdf

      See page 19.

      :-)

      I don’t think this is about brain power or cognitive ability. It’s about how the genders answer a survey. I think the Forbes piece draws some assumptions from the survey that are reaching, but interesting to consider. I see this anecdotally every day.

      And like, @linuxchik, I agree that men can be just as catty, bitchy and demonstrative as women.

      I do think it’s worth looking at how people use the internet from a gender perspective.

      • linuxchik

        totally.

  • nobody

    blurb — spent any time looking at the community model spawned by stackoverflow.com? Rather different from what you’re doing at dooce, but something to be aware of.

  • techguy2007

    One thing that I’ve noticed on the “Community Forum” is that 99% of the time when a woman answers a particular question, it usually starts with a “I’m so sorry that you are feeling this way…” or something along those lines. Men, including myself, typically go straight for the problem and/or solution. Do you see that or is it just me?