Recently I was browsing the posts at one of those blog directories (I seem to have an abundance of over in the sidebar) and came upon a post about a news item that was actually from 2005. It seemed interesting though, the premise being that men and women use the internet differently. I decided to stick it out and read the article. To my horrors, I discovered something earth-shattering.
I, fracas, despite being a self-confessed shoe-whore and a lover of nice bras and other types of underwear… am a man.
I’ve even found this evidence, over at the webpronews site.
- “On the Internet, as in life, men and women have different motivations for doing what they do. According to a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life, women view the Internet as a place to extend, support, and nurture relationships and communities.
- Men tend to see it as an office, a library, or a playground–screw the community, this is about function not family.
- The report found that women are more enthusiastic communicators, using email in a more robust way. Not only sending and receiving more email than men, women are more likely to write to family and friends about a variety of topics, sharing news, joys and worries, planning events, and forwarding jokes and stories.
- The report found that women are more likely to use the Internet for emailing, getting maps and directions (after all, we men always know where we’re going), looking for health and medical information, seeking support for health and personal problems, and getting religious information.
- Men tend to be more intense Internet users than women, being more likely to go online daily (61% of men and 57% of women) and more likely to go online several times a day (44% of men and 39% of women).
- Men also tend to go online in greater numbers than women but for a much broader variety of reasons. Men are more likely to use the Internet to check the weather, get news, find do-it-yourself information, acquire sports scores and information, look for political information, do job-related research, download software, listen to music, rate a product/person/service through an online reputation system, download music, use a webcam, and take a class.Note there was nothing about “nurturing relationships.”"
Damn!
I’m horrible at remembering to check my email, I hate those damn stories and poems full of animated gifs that other women send me, and oh my stars… but I tend to use the internet to get news, find do-it-yourself information, and all the rest of that stuff that’s on the man list.
Now, it’s not the first time that I’ve spoken about this manliness about me and honestly, I’m not too worried about whether or not I’m really a man because much as I’d like to have to not worry about it, as regular as the power company sends me their monthly extortion bill, the Tampax fairy arrives to remind me of my continued womanhood. The question I really want answered now though, having proof that since I Google rather than Yahoo, is…
Will all my female friends and family out there please stop forwarding me all that stuff that gives the good folks at Snopes, a reason to live?
After all, I’m a man, and men don’t send each other that stuff.
Text links to sources (in order of appearance):
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/-Posters_i846194_.htm
http://fracas.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/the-fracas-red-shoe-diaries/
http://fracas.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/the-red-bra-diaries/
http://fracas.wordpress.com/2006/11/15/manly-fracas/
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2005/12/29/men-are-from-google-women-are-from-yahoo
http://www.snopes.com/
