"You've come a long way, baby," the ad line for Virginia Slims, can now apply to the Internet. The once male-dominated world of the Net is fast becoming an attraction for women as well.
A new survey released in mid May shows during the past six months nine million women have tackled the online world for the first time. This represents about 10% of the adult women in the USA. The computer conversion of the fairer sex has picked up steam. About five years ago, only about 9% of the Net's population were women. Today women split the Internet down the middle, making up half the Net's population.
The survey conducted by Pew Internet and American Life Project, a study to measure the Net's social impact, also gives us some characteristics of the women users. Initially, it is usually e-mail that draws women to the Internet and since women are more sociable on the Internet, it is not surprising that e-mail remains one of their main online activities. E-mail, however, is not the sole activity of women online. The poll discovered just as many women reported use of other activities including shopping, chatting, and research. Recently, the Internet served as the main tool used in organizing the Million Moms March for gun-law reform.
An earlier survey from Stanford University concluded that the computer fosters a reclusive lifestyle; the more time spent online, the more isolated the user. My own online experience and this most recent study by Pew repudiate this theory. Even though the keyboard is a solo activity, a woman will use her computer in support of her family and community. Women strengthen ties with family and friends through the Internet. The Pew study also shows that four out of five e-mail users who keep in touch with family or close friends say they have communicated more since going online. A staggering twenty-six million Americans have used e-mail to initiate regular communications with a family member with whom they had lost contact. How's that for a statistic on the Internet bringing us closer together!
iVillage, the largest online community devoted to women, sponsored its second annual Take Your Moms Online, a project where schools encourage teen daughters to teach Internet basics to their mothers. This year more moms in their 40's are taking their own mothers online. Among new users, the fastest–growing segment is women over 50. We often see the statistic that members of the BC Generations (that's the Before Computers Generation), those 45 and older, are the fastest growing segment of the online population. Now we find, thanks to the Pew study, that a lot of that impact is credited to the women. They have "come a long way, baby."
