She Mailed, He Googled

Hira Ali, a homemaker, follows a set pattern of tasks whenever she goes online. She opens her email inbox and sifts through the unread emails. She sends detailed replies to most of the emails sent by her friends and relatives. She makes it a point to read even the forwarded emails. Once she has checked all the mails, she logs in to her Orkut and Facebook account. She replies to her messages, checks out the latest discussions in her favourite communities and posts some scraps on people’s walls. She also visits her friends’ profiles to see what they are up to. All this while, her instant messenger is switched on, and she is usually chatting with a couple of friends or cousins. She stays online for an hour or two. In the meantime, if something else needs her attention, she leaves her laptop switched on while she attends to the chore.

Her husband, on the other hand, has a completely different list of things to-do when he logs in to the internet. He checks his email alright; however, he ignores all forwarded emails. The replies he sends are usually short and to-the-point. He has stopped logging in to Orkut, but does check his Facebook account. After giving his homepage a cursory glance, he either plays a game or two, or goes through a personality quiz. He may reply to a scrap if someone has posted one son his wall. Once that is done, he lingers online only if he has something to search for, otherwise his time online is effectively over. And if, while he is online, he has to leave the PC for some work, he disconnects the internet and turns off the system.

The above scenario once again endorses what we have been hearing since childhood: that men are from Mars, and women are from Venus, and this holds true even in the virtual world. Studies have also proved that there are differences in the way men and women communicate with others, and there is a striking contrast in the way they use the internet. This contrast can be subtle in some cases, and quite glaring in others, although this usually depends on the personality of the individual in question.

Differences in the use of the internet by men and women have been an interesting subject of study. Independent researchers and university professors alike have studied these gender differences in great detail — usually seeking to establish the different things men and women do in cyberspace, along with their motivation to do those things. These studies have come up with very interesting, and sometimes, very apt findings.

One such noteworthy research in this regard was Gender and the internet: women communicating and men searching. Conducted by Linda A Jackson, Philip D Gardner and Neal Schmitt of Michigan State University, and Kelly S Ervin of Washington State University, this research was published in the Journal of Sex Roles in 2001.

The researchers sampled 630 Anglo-American undergraduates, and based on a survey, they discovered that women used email more than did men did since they had a stronger motive for interpersonal communication. Men, on the other hand, used the Web more than women since they had a stronger motive for information gathering.

However, there were some similarities between the two genders as well. Men and women reportedly used the internet equally often. Hence, there was no support for the oft-held notion that men use the internet more than women. Also, even though men used the internet to perform a greater number of searches than women, there was no evidence to suggest that these searches were more ‘successful’ than those done by women.

However, given that the lines between gender roles are fast blurring, it is difficult to believe that men and women stick to completely separate internet activities. And in this day and age, it is also hard to imagine either gender not logging into the inbox as soon as s/he goes online. With many email services on the house, and the fact that email is an inalienable part of any business environment, one just cannot imagine that men open a search engine the minute they go online, while women stick to their email inboxes for an hour.

Another study, titled How women and men use the internet takes this factor into account. Conducted by Pew internet and American life project, this study was based on telephonic interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between March 2000 and September 2005. The study looks into how likely men and women are to go online in the first place, the demographics of the online population, and, finally, the section of current relevance: different online activities of men and women.

When formulating the results, the research analysed the different way men and women communicate online, which indicates that men are just as likely to check their email first and foremost when they log into the virtual world. The only difference lies in the amount of time they give to their email, along with how they use their email in the first place.The study also found that women like to discuss a number of issues with their friends and family members via email; they generally believe that email improves their relationship with them. Hence, a woman’s email is more likely to be enthusiastic, reflecting the time and effort she has put into writing it, and it is valued not just by the sender, but also by the receiver, especially if she happens to be a woman too. Men, on the other hand, are unlikely to share information about their problems and issues through email. This is actually reflective of in real life as well, where women share more problems with their friends than men.

Similar to email, it is hard to imagine men doing all the searching online. Studies have shown that even women seek out information on health, religion and personal problems. Some of them also look up information relating to their PC problems, so obviously, online searches are not exclusive to the male domain. However, while both the genders may be following the same activity, their styles differ widely.

The Pew report found that while women sift out the information they need from the massive search results that they get, men aggressively visit more websites to hunt down the specific information they are looking for. In a nutshell, women are more overwhelmed by the search results, while men are more confident that they will find the information that they need.

As the virtual world expands to no end, various studies on users’ internet habits are also coming up with special reference to gender differences. Perhaps, if one was to simulate such a research at a smaller scale, it will certainly bring out an interesting mix of results, endorsing the belief that while she likes to Gmail, he prefers to Google.

AND THEY SAY...

Given that there was no study closer to home which indicated the differences in the way men and women use the internet, Sci-Tech World approached certain individuals selected at random and asked them to compare their top three online activities with other male and female members of their families.

The responses were as follows.

“I check my email for the freelance work I do. Apart from that, I get newsletters from INETA — the Microsoft-based newsletter. Secondly, I use the net to stay connected with my friends, and for that I regularly check my Facebook and Orkut. Thirdly, I surf — my favourite website is Google. My sister uses the net for chatting and sometimes to surf on business websites. My brothers have different activities as well. One is a medical student, so he uses the net mostly to copy lectures from the net, while the second one uses it to keep in touch with family via Orkut and Yahoo!”
Kanizeh Mehdi

“I like to read news, especially related to global financials; check my email and log on to Facebook, and do research to find any required information.”
Madiha Javed

“I sign into messenger, check my mail and log into Facebook. If there’s some other project I need to work on (for example, a lecture or a blog-post) I do it after I’ve done the former. My brother does the same. However, instead of blog-posting like I do, he’s usually hunting for the latest software for his iPhone or downloading latest movies.”
Mahwash Ajaz

“My top three activities when I go online is checking my mail and reading and replying to mails, checking my Facebook account, and information gathering for assignments. My sister uses the net to check her mails, MSN messenger and for her office work.”
Naureen Aqueel

“Generally, when I use the internet, I either use it to check my mail, do networking on Facebook and Orkut and for research purposes. I also keep in touch with friends through chat on MSN and Google.There is not much difference between the online activities of men and women in my family. Perhaps, the male family members chat more and do networking on Facebook rather than using the net for research. Sometimes, we even consult the Webster dictionary online. But surfing the web is definitely something that we do more than chatting.”
Aelia Raza

“I check my email, read news and do a bit social networking with friends.”
Adnan Siddiqi

“I usually open multiple browsers and check and reply to my emails in this order: work (through webmail), personal (hotmail), rotary (via Gmail apps) and Facebook. I then browse through some of my favourite blogs, NY Times and Economist magazine.”
Arsalaan Haleem

“I spend most of my time on the internet to do research and downloading music. Blogs and email follow with social networks. I’m definitely logged on to messenger whenever I sit down at a PC. I guess most of my family uses internet around the same pattern, although my younger brothers, prefer to chat more and play games (scrabble on Facebook).”
Imtiaz Noor

“I go online to get my information fix — I follow a number of blogs, magazines and newspapers in my RSS reader. I check email - while I do this every day, I spend relatively little time on it, as I send quick answers to any pending emails. I write a weblog post on average once a month, so I spend some time looking up information on the internet regarding that. I hardly do any chatting or social networking.”
Khalid Omer

“I do research or general reading (wikipedia, editorials, news blogs, news sites, etc). Apart from that, I am in my mailbox and then on some social networking website. The largest difference I see in internet usage within my family is the amount of time spent on social networking sites. Everybody is on them, but they barely log in. For them it is purely a mail-Google-IM affair”.
Shyam Balasubramanian

The above responses, interestingly, show some interesting patterns. All women reported that one of their top internet activities was checking their Facebook, while men mentioned social networking as one of their top online activity rather than any specific website. Email was a universal top online activity as was searching for information, for whatever purpose. In a way, these random results definitely are in some consensus with the aforementioned research results. However, whether it is blogging or emailing, men and women are definitely engaging in inter-personal communication at some level whenever they visit cyberspace.Compiled by H.A.

Similarities in men and women users
Use a search engine,
Look for information on travel, jobs and/or places to live
Look for specific phone numbers and addresses
Find information from the government websites
Purchase products and groceries online,
Make travel plans or purchases;
Do online banking
Donate to charity
Pay bills
Do instant messaging
Listen to music
Watch videos
Go online for no particular reason
Play online games

Differences in men
Get news about the weather
Get news in general
Search for do-it-yourself information
Check out sports updates
Get political information/news
Get financial information/news
Do job-related research
Download software
Rate a product/person/service through an online reputation system
Download music files
Use a webcam

Differences in womens
Send and receive email
Look for maps and directions
Look for information on health and medical problems
Use web sites to get support for health or personal problems
Look for information on religion

The findings are available for a free at http://www.pewinternet.org