BY GRACE ESSEN
I very narrowly missed my laptop hitting the floor and maybe breaking into two a few days ago. I had wondered how I would have ‘coped’ being offline while I waited for a replacement. One might say that wouldn’t be the end of the world, but in some way it would have. I have gotten so used to this piece of equipment I wonder what it would be like not to have it, or something better. It isn’t just the laptop that is the issue here but also access to internet and social media.
I have often imagined what goes on in the minds of our men – spouses, boyfriends, and children too when they watch us spend hours swiping on our tabs and phones and punching away on our keyboards giggling at something funny, sometimes laughing out loud when we can’t help it. The question on their minds: “What do women do on the internet, anyway?”
If you wanted a quick answer it would be this: On the average, women are online 24.8 hours a month compared to men’s 22.9 hours based on a recent report, 16.3 per cent of the time women spend online is allotted to social networking, and the average is constantly rising as years go by and technology advances. Women of age 45 and above have been found by comScore the most responsible for the boom in social media platform usage, while girls of the 15 to 24 demographic are labelled the heaviest users with the widest social reach. Also a new study by British telecommunications company, BT, says women ‘depend’ on social media while men use the internet to get smarter and richer. It says it polled more than 2,000 Brits before determining that women are “more dependent” on social media and according to the Daily Telegraph, over half of the women surveyed said they used social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook, while only 34 percent of men “admitted” to doing so. Mmmh! BT also found that nine per cent of women play online games, as opposed to eight per cent of men, and only three percent of men use content sharing websites, such as Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo, compared to six per cent of women. So what exactly do women do online?!
Statistics show that while more women use the internet for research purposes, such as looking up shopping deals – yea, obviously we ladies love to research before we shop; we’re very thorough you would agree, more men turn to the web to supplement their learning and expand their knowledge on various areas of interest. So it appears women can’t imagine living without Facebook and Twitter while men being stoical in nature would be able to do without, since they only use the internet for business, banking and gaining more knowledge.
As it is, while men use the internet to expand their enormous brains and manage their finances in an organized manner, ladies just shop and chat. Well, rather than getting myself all worked up with the report, I decided to find out instead what women would miss the most if the internet didn’t exist, as a way of finding out what women really do online besides shopping and chatting, that is. Here are some responses:
“A day doesn’t go by when I don’t wonder whether I’d spend more time in-person with my friends if I didn’t have them all so easily accessible via Facebook. Sure, not the ones in other countries, but then ironically I talk less to them anyway.”
“I would miss the news, gossip mags, entertainments and certain blogs and sites, and being in tune with current events as they happen. I literally READ all day long. Reading novels has fallen by the wayside a bit but I read more than I ever have in my life now thanks to all the awesome writing on the internet. I’d miss e-mail same, but frankly, if Facebook went away tomorrow, I wouldn’t mourn much.”
“I would miss online shopping for sake of convenience, for sure. Since I gained a lot of weight, I hate having to go into regular stores only to realize nothing will fit, and I hate how depressing the one or two plus-sized stores nearby are. Getting gorgeous plus-sized clothing from online definitely helps to supplement my mood about things.”
“Well, I’d miss my job. I work in social media moderation, so I depend on the internet for my livelihood. I work from home as well, so I’d have to actually get out of my jammy-jams to go to work.”
“I work from home and live on the other end of town from most of my friends so without Facebook, instant messenger, etc. I’d be very bored and lonely. I also hate talking on the phone because I am hard of hearing. I don’t have a water cooler, a break room or a lunch date. If I didn’t look away from my work every once in a while my brain would melt. I’m now in the third major city I’ve lived in since finally finishing from school, and I don’t relish the idea of losing track of all the fine souls I’ve known along the way. There are all sorts of women too – mostly local moms – who are managing to share their discoveries on the interwebs for profit and business!”
“Social media is one of the biggest ways we can organise events and connect with mum/ women communities – it’s also where a lot of our in-course discussion happens. The ease of organising chat groups, meetings, parties, campaigns etc is amazing. It’s also the easiest way for parents to keep track of children who are away from home; it’s not all the time you want to talk on phone.”
“I barely use and quite despise Facebook, never been on Twitter, don’t check my bank that much, could live without email, and should probably stop shopping online so much. I would also miss my calorie count and nutrition website, but I could get along just fine without it.”
“I think I’d also really miss the comments from readers and subscribers on some sites and forums. I’ve gotten such an education and found ways of doing stuff from people I would never know.”
The most important use of course is to keep or build friendships/family ties which I think is valuable if we cherish our families and friends, and most certainly women do. There’s a difference between enjoying social media and depending on it. Women are more social than men to start with, so it’s no surprise we feature more prominently on social networks. But saying we depend on them, many have found that baseless and typical gender stereotyping. Many women would never go near Facebook or any other social media site but for having a way to keep up with old friends, extended family and several groups they belong to, also for business purposes and source of info particularly on family and health-related issues.
A panel during a recent Internet Week New York had a discussion on how women specifically use the Internet, and the speakers stated that women are more inclined to focus on technology’s ability to improve life, compared to men who tend to hone in on technical specifications. Now you tell me, of what use is technology if not to improve the quality of life?
gracessen@gmail.com 08023271339 (sms only).