Re: Gender Gap with Computer Use

There are a number of other articles that also play to what Caitlin said, but rather than just focusing on gender with regard to general computer use, they focus specifically on Internet use, looking at a variety of factors such as gender, race, income, and education. In the aggregate, the findings indicate what one would expect; the same factors that predict income levels or access to or use of other services are good indicators of Internet use as well. Rich, well educated, white males have always had societal advantages when compared to others and according to these other studies, the same is true of Internet usage as well. I'm not saying that this is a good thing, by any means, but it is not surprising that history still holds true in today's more technology-driven world.

One very interesting thing found in the article by Hargittai and Shafer was that, between genders, while actual abilities on the Internet may be the same, women tended to perceive their skills as "significantly lower than men." While this is interesting simply by itself, when put into a broader societal context, we can clearly see that society's preasures are felt just as strongly in cyberspace as they are in reality. What I mean by this is that women who are, say, doctors, even today, if they are just as good as a male doctor will percive themselves as being worse, and will also likely not be selected for a job against an equivalent male doctor simply due to ingrained, unintentional(hopefully) societal perceptions.

So, while I do think that the gender equality gap is closing, I am not sure how large a part the Internet is playing. As we have mentioned numerous times, "social networking" sites like Facebook, Myspace, etc. seem to bring people together, but it seems that they really hold everyone at the same distance. For long-lost friends, this might mean being brought closer together, or if the friend lives on the other side of the planet, but for the majority of our friends, the ones we actually have day-to-day (or at least week-to-week) contact with, it removes the face-to-face component, eliminating more than 50% of the conversation! This impersonalizes everything, and holds everyone at the same distance, effectively isolating people from the human interaction we desperately need!