Study: Men Are From Hulu, Women Are From Facebook

Worldwide, who or what has been driving the rapid adoption of social networks? Well, women deserve far more credit (blame?) than men, according to a new report from comScore.

Indeed, comScore found that social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men globally -- with 75.8% of all women online visiting a social networking site in May 2010, versus 69.7% of men.

"We have seen that women across the globe share some similar usage patterns online, such as strong engagement with social networking sites," said Linda Boland Abraham, comScore chief marketing officer and EVP for global development.

Although women account for 47.9% of total unique visitors to the social networking category, they consume 57% of pages and account for nearly 57% of total minutes spent on these sites. What's more, women spend significantly more time on social networking sites than men, with women averaging 5.5 hours per month compared to men's 4 hours.

Across each global region, social networking reached a higher percentage of women online than men. "But it's also important to understand gender differences on a regional, country and local level, where cultural differences are continually shaping online usage and content consumption," Abraham added.

Social networking's reach among women is highest in Latin America -- where it reached 94.1% of females online -- and in North America, where it reached 91% of females. Europe saw 85.6% of its female online population visit a social networking site in May 2010 -- while Asia-Pacific, where parts of the region still face low broadband penetration and site restrictions, reported a 54.9% reach.

Although men are in the majority across the global Internet, women spend about 8 percent more time online, averaging 25 hours per month on the Web. Of particular note, women the world over spend 20% more time on retail sites overall than men, says comScore.

Among the various retail subcategories, comparison shopping and apparel sites reached the highest percentage of women at 24.8% and 18.7%, respectively, in May. In the U.S., women are more avid online buyers than men, with 12.5% of female Internet users making an online purchase in February, compared to 9.3% of men.

Health sites show some of the largest overall differences in reach between female and male, with a nearly 6-point gap between global women and men.

In most countries, meanwhile, women spend far less time watching online video than men, but women spend a much higher share of their time watching videos on YouTube than men.