Girls, Boys Equally Attracted to the Internet
Overall, 48 percent of nine-to 12-year-old boys and girls are online, while 71 percent of 13- to 17-year-old boys and girls are online. Girls are just as likely to use the Internet as their male counterparts; 50 percent of nine-to12-year-old girls use the Internet, compared to 46 percent of boys in this age group. In the 13- to 17-year-old age bracket, 73 percent of girls use the Internet, compared to 70 percent of boys. Overall, there is no statistical difference between the proportion of girls and boys who are online. Clearly, this encouraging news debunks any remaining stereotypes about technology-phobic girls when it comes to the Internet.
Girls are more likely to use e-mail than boys, according to their parents. Sixty-eight percent of girls use e-mail at least once a week, compared to only 50 percent of boys. Thirty percent of boys never use e-mail. Girls aged two to 12 are more than twice as likely as boys (23 percent compared to 10 percent) to use the Internet to e-mail friends and relatives, according to their parents. Girls also appear more likely than boys to use chat rooms on the Internet: 36 percent of girls and 27 percent of boys use chat rooms at least once a week, according to their parents.
Boys, on the other hand, report using the Internet more often for entertainment than do girls. Sixty-one percent of boys and 45 per-cent of girls aged nine to 17 report using the Internet for entertainment at least once a week. In the same age group, 54 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls report using the Internet for games at least once a week.
Girls and boys find different ways to use the Internet, however. Girls aged nine to 17 report using the Internet more for education than boys in the same age range (57 percent vs. 39 percent). Girls in this age group also report using the Internet for schoolwork more often than boys do: 88 percent of girls (compared to 71 percent of boys) report using it at least once a month for schoolwork.
