A recent PEW Internet study exploring how men and women use the Internet points out some interesting differences between the sexes. This caught my attention because in every study we’ve done; we’ve tried to break out results by gender and explored the different usage patterns. It’s been fascinating to see how millions of years of conditioning and the differences in our respective genetic wiring have impacted our use of a new technology. The PEW study echoed a lot of what we had seen. What I’d like to do over the next two columns is explore this further. Today, I’ll present some of the more interesting findings from the PEW study and ours, and next week I’ll provide my thoughts on why we may be seeing what we’re seeing.

Comfort Levels

The PEW study found that men are slightly more intense internet users than women, and seem to be more engaged when on line. Men are more likely to go online on a daily basis and tend to do so a little more frequently. Men are also a little more likely to have a high speed connection at home.

When we add age breakdowns to the mix, an interesting anomaly occurs, with older men (65 and over) more likely to be online than older women, but younger women (18 – 29) more likely to be online than younger men.

What They Do Online

Men and women have very distinct reasons for going online. Men tend to retrieve information, such as weather, news, sports scores, financial information. They also download software, listen to music (or download it), research products, look for jobs, find out how to repair something or educate themselves on a topic.

For women, the internet is first and foremost a communication vehicle, with email usage a prime reason. They also look for health and medical information, look for support for health or personal problems, and get religious information.

Some gender stereotypes never die. Women are still more likely to look for maps and directions online than men. Once a guy, always a guy!

The Sexes and Search

It used to be that there was a distinct male bias towards search usage. That is rapidly disappearing, but is still apparent. In earlier studies (done in 2003 and 2004) PEW found that 35% of men and 25% of women were likely to use a search engine on a typical day. In 2005, usage on both sides of the gender divide soared, but men still edged out women, by 43% to 39%.

In our research, we find that men were more likely to use Google, which dominated as the engine of choice. For women, although Google was still the number one choice, it was closely followed by MSN and Yahoo.

We also found that men were more likely to use advanced search queries. They also tended to spend a little less time actively reading listings and made their decisions to click faster. Women tend to be a little more deliberate in their search sessions. Men scanned more of the search results page, but women spent more time with the page.

We found that women tend to be more influenced by what they read in the listing, when men seem to be a little more conditioned to trust the first organic listings. This usually translated into slightly higher click throughs on the sponsored results for women.

Perhaps the most interesting thing we found, despite the differences noted above, was this: when men and women interact with almost every type of site online, there are distinct differences with how they assimilate information, navigate the site and respond to visual cues. When we look at how they interact with a search results page, the differences, while present, are much more subtle.

Why?

Hang onto to that question, and I’ll hazard a guess next week.

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