23% of men access porn sites on company time either on purpose or "by accident" (yeah, yeah). Only 12% of women admit to having viewed porn sites for any reason. Websense elucidated these findings in its sixth annual Web@Work survey. In addition, the study indicated that more men than women access the Internet from work for personal surfing.

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The Male Online Experience
Men spend more time online: they logon more, are more likely to be broadband users, purchase more, pay bills more, research more,  download more, and are more interested in the technology. Men are more likely to communicate with organizations. These are highlights from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The Female Online Experience
The Pew/Internet report goes on to say that women use the Internet more for communication--emails, sharing news, planning events, and forwarding funny jokes and stories. Women include a far wider range of topics and activities in their emails. Women are also more likely to communicate with friends and relatives.

The Internet and EQ:SQ Theory
Overall, women use the Internet only very sligthly less than men. However, as with the male versus female intelligence debate, it seems that the empathizing-systemizing theory appears to hold true for the Internet. The way men and women use the Internet is different. That's not to say that men never use the Internet for communicating with friends and relatives or that no women embrace the new technologies of the Internet fully. But, on average, women are the communicators and men are the technophiles.

Equality on The Internet
As we saw with higher education, it seems historial opportunities and aspirations influence womens' use of the Internet. Women over thirty trail behind men online; however, women under thirty and black women use the Internet more than their male colleagues. Oddly, unlike career choice, most women probably don't mind having it pointed out that they use the Internet differently to men. They can accept this "inequality" quite smugly. So why do women want to be "equal" at work?

The Last Word on The Internet
There's another area where women are catching up to men, too. According to Websense, in their 2004 survey 100% women who visited porn sites said they did so unintentionally. In the 2005 survey 11% women who visited porn sites said they visited these less-than salubrious sites on purpose.

Progress, indeed.

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About the author

Katrina Boydon is a systemizing female with empathizing traits. She is as likely to be found crying over a sad film as balancing her bank account to the last cent.