Forrester Research just released a study about media habits of men versus women. The numbers are pretty solid that men tend to suck up just about all media more than women. Together, men and women average about 46 hours a week immersed in media but men have the lead.
One major area of media interaction is the computer. Men average 10.2 hours on their computer with 6.7 of that online whereas women average 8.5 hour with 5.3 of those being online.
A noted difference the study mention was the activities the two genders engaged in. Women tend to be more oriented toward things like photo sharing, online phone directories, online games(mostly things like solitare and other similar games rather than MMORPG). Men tend to be a little more discussion oriented toward news and opinion for their Internet repast. The study said men look discussion boards as well as news and online magazines.
The study noted though that men overall, utilize media more than women in all areas except magazines. The included TV watching, reading newspapers and magazines, listening to the radio, using the Internet, playing video games and watching movies and DVDs all ranked higher.
Their methodology was based on a web-based survey of over 5000 U.S. and Canadian households. The only issue one might pick with this survey is that Internet users still might not be considered a valid sample a survey of this type. There are still plenty of people out there who don’t utilize the Internet at all, both men and women and they wouldn’t respond to these results.
Also, people taking an online survey would certainly be more apt to utilize the net anyway, hence creating a result skewed toward Internet usage. Internet usage in and of itself has certain socio-economic factors involved that could account for additional skewed data.
While it’s an interesting study in some regards, the quality of the sample could certainly be called into question on this one by the very nature in which it was obtained.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
