There is some disagreement amongst researchers on the influence gender has on Internet usage. While most studies show that Internet users are mostly male, the ratio of men to women varies from study to study. Using the adjusted Nielsen survey figures, Project 2000 puts the percentage of female users at 33% [Hoffman, 1996]¹⁵, and the FIND/SVP study concurs with 35%[1995-6], though the Yankelovich survey places their proportion at 43%[1995-6].

Other studies have demonstrated that women tend to be at a disadvantage in using computer technology. Krendl, et al did a three-year study where middle and high school girls appeared less interested in computers "even when they have as much experience with the technology as boys." Their study was originally designed to see if the sex differences disappeared over time, but what they found was that while both boys and girls became less confident with their computer skills over time, girls' confidence waned more significantly than the boys'. [Krendl, et al, 1989]

The Berkeley data, however, tends to contradict the notion that females are any more likely to refrain from using the Internet. The following graph shows that the proportion of users and non-users by gender. It indicates shows that men and women are equally likely to use the Internet.

Part of the explanation for the differences between Krendl's data and the Berkeley data can be found in critiquing some of the assumptions put forth by Kredl or the literature she cited. She cites a study by Vredenburg, Flett, Krames, and Pliner¹⁶ which said that male undergraduates were more likely to buy a computer. However, that study was in 1984. By 1996, the undergraduates in the Berkeley sample showed that 77% of the men had computers [72 out of 93] while 74% of the women also owned their own [78 out of 106].

She also cites two studies¹⁷ which said that boys were more likely to enroll in programming courses which could influence their later comfort with computers. However, the Berkeley data discounted the influence of more intensive computer uses in childhood on later tendencies to use the Internet. The following table reflects all the respondents who reported using a computer at home or in school for more intensive computer uses¹⁸ and examined the proportion of Internet users versus non-users. The results show that while there were more Users, they were a similar proportion as the overall breakdown of users and non-users for the entire sample.

This finding was surprising, and a similar surprise was that while most of the respondents reported using a computer at home and/or at school as children, not all of them were Internet Users once at college. If early exposure is to be a predisposing factor to adopting the Internet later on there must have been some other difference in their early exposure to computers. Further discussion on this topic appears later in the analysis.

Returning to the discussion of gender, the data does not suggest that there is no difference on Internet usage patterns due to gender, however. The questions that asked about using the specific applications of the Internet suggest that males were more likely to use more its technical applications, whereas females used the applications that corresponded most directly to specific functions, like emailing.

The questions that asked about specific Internet uses reveal similar predispositions based on gender. From the following graphs one can see that males are generally more likely to use the Internet as an information resource. Females prefer to use the Internet for inter-personal communication.

[NB: "KITW" = Keep In Touch With; "IO" = Instead Of]

The predispositions for women to use the Internet for inter-personal communication has historical precedent in the literature chronicling the diffusion of the telephone. According to Fischer [1992], study after study on the use of the telephone reported that women were more likely to have them and use them for conversation. Even when the telephone was first being integrated widely throughout the society, the more adult females in the household, the more likely the household would have a telephone. Fischer cites three plausible answers for the gender disparity:

"First, modern women have been so isolated from adult contact during the day than men, so they have grasped the telephone as a device for breaking that isolation. Second, married women's duties have usually included the role of social manager - making appointments, preparing events, staying informed about kin and friends and keeping them informed about the family, and the like; men neglect those tasks. Indeed, by many accounts, a wife typically maintains the family's communications with the husband's kin as well as with her own. As Rakow puts it, 'telephone talk is work women do to hold together the fabric of the community...' Third, North American women are more comfortable on the telephone than are North American men because they are generally more sociable than men."

It is not likely that the first two explanations have any merit upon this particular sample, but the third explanation may partly apply. The idea that women are more sociable can explain why women like to use the Internet for inter-personal communication. However, the chart shows that men appear to be equally sociable. Thus the male predisposition was relatively unprecedented when compared to the diffusion of other technologies, like the telephone.

A closer look shows that there are differences in inter-personal communication. Women are more predisposed to use the Internet to keep in touch via email with people they already know, while males are more willing than women to use it in more anonymous social situations such as MUDs or newsgroups.

These same types of distinctions were observed in the FIND/SVP study. It reported that:

"The survey confirms that men are much more likely than women to use the worldwide web and such specialized applications as FTP and the Usenet. However, women are slightly more likely than men to use Internet email and to participate in Internet mail lists, underscoring a strong predisposition among women toward Internet communications features."

Overall the data is suggesting that people, regardless of gender, adopt the Internet as they would any other technology, constructing its uses around their own preferences or needs. To the extent that preferences and needs vary in gender, so does Internet usage.

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