• by kyle , Daisy Whitney , January 2, 2009

A study explores ways men and women relate online

It appears women really do like curling up with a good book. And during the day, they seem to prefer real people over online buddies just a tad more than men do. So says a study that explored the online and offline habits of men and women, from the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for the Digital Future.

One in seven Internet users who visit online communities said those activities are lessening their involvement with the real world, with men reporting this three times more than women. The study also found that women spend two more hours each week with books - actual paper books - than do men, who spend an hour and a half more reading online newspapers, magazines and books than women.

Men feel more connected to their online connections and tend to meet them offline more than women do, explains Michael Gilbert, a senior fellow at usc Annenberg. "There is a great body of knowledge suggesting women have slightly smaller connections of circles but they are deeper, and men have larger spheres of acquaintances, but they are more shallow," he says. "What these results are saying is women put a little less emphasis on their online connections because they put more credence in the offline connections. So they are not as likely to say their online connections are as important or they affect their offline relationships as much."

What does this mean for marketers? Gilbert emphasizes that each advertiser should consider the specific goals of a campaign first, but broadly speaking, a marketer might want to allocate more marketing dollars to the Web if trying to reach men and more to offline channels if targeting women.

But don't forget that the differentials are small - men say they spend 16.4 hours a week online away from work, compared to 14.4 hours for women away from work. Women haven't abandoned the Web; they're just there a little bit less.

Women also aren't reducing their offline activities because of their online ones by the same degree as men. More men than women said the time they spend with their online communities is diminishing their involvement with offline counterparts "at least somewhat;" 21.5 percent of men agreed with this statement compared to 7.3 percent of women.

While 55 percent of online users said they "feel as strongly" about their online communities as they do about their offline communities, men have deeper affection for the online world - about 60 percent of men compared to 47 percent of women reported feeling strongly about their online world.

That may be why six in 10 men have met in person with someone they first contacted online, compared to half of women. That women are more cautious about meeting up offline is not surprising, Gilbert says. He plans to keep tracking the greater interest men have in meeting their online community members, what that means, and why these gender differences exist in online and offline interactions.

Interestingly, the gender distinctions bleed into reading habits, perhaps one of the most old-school media form in this increasingly new media world. Gilbert found that women spend two hours more each week with books offline. Men, however, spend more than an hour and a half each week than women do reading online newspapers, magazines and books. "Women still seem to enjoy the experience of curling up with a good book and men spend more time with their monitor," Gilbert says. This may explain the desire for robotic Stepford wives.