Research: Stark differences in men/women online habits
November 28, 2024
Significant differences in the online lives of men and women in the UK have been revealed in Ofcom’s annual report into the nation’s digital habits.
Across all adult age groups, women are spending more time online – on smartphones, tablets and computers – than men – clocking up an extra 33 minutes more each day in May 2024 on average at 4 hours 36 minutes, compared to 4 hours 3 minutes.
This gender gap is at its most extreme among Gen Z internet users. Women aged 18-24 are spending more than an hour longer each day online than their male counterparts – an average of 6 hours 36 minutes, versus 5 hours 28 minutes for men (+21 per cent).
Looking at the top 10 social media websites and apps, women account for the majority of time spent on Pinterest (79 per cent), Snapchat (66 per cent), Instagram (64 per cent), TikTok (62 per cent) and Facebook (61 per cent). Men, on the other hand, account for the majority of time spent on Quora (70 per cent), X (63 per cent), Reddit (61 per cent), LinkedIn (60 per cent) and YouTube (56 per cent).
Although women in general engage more heavily with the online world, they’re more likely than men to feel they have a good balance between their screen-time and real-world activities (69 per cent vs 66 per cent). But they’re also more sceptical about the internet’s personal and societal value, given they’re less likely than men to think that the benefits of the online world outweigh the risks (65 per cent vs 70 per cent) and less likely to believe that the internet is a good thing for society (34 per cent vs 47 per cent).
Women and teenage girls more worried about online harms
Similarly, women are much more troubled than men about the potential for harm online. Extremism (87 per cent vs 77 per cent), human trafficking (86 per cent vs 76 per cent), suicide (86 per cent vs 77 per cent), female genital mutilation (85 per cent vs 74 per cent) and hateful or offensive content (83 per cent vs 67 per cent) are significantly more worrying for women than men.
This is echoed among teenage girls aged 13-17, who are much more concerned than boys of the same age about sexual or pornographic (67 per cent vs 48 per cent), misogynistic (60 per cent vs 51 per cent), and violent content (64 per cent vs 52 per cent), as well as content promoting self-harm (75 per cent vs 59 per cent), or excessive or unhealthy dieting/exercise (51 per cent vs 37 per cent).
When it comes to actual experience of online harms, men are more likely to encounter misinformation (41 per cent vs 37 per cent), scams or fraud (36 per cent vs 31 per cent) and hateful content (27 per cent vs 24 per cent). Women are more likely to experience unwelcome friend or follow requests (30 per cent vs 26 per cent), misogynistic content (23 per cent vs 19 per cent) and body image related content (21 per cent vs 13 per cent).
Teenage boys are more likely than girls to encounter content showing dangerous stunts (29 per cent vs 19 per cent). Girls more commonly experience online harms relating to body image, including: content stigmatising certain body types (25 per cent vs 11 per cent); content promoting excessive or unhealthy eating/exercise (19 per cent vs 9 per cent); group shaming (19 per cent vs 10 per cent) and eating disorder-related content (17 per cent vs 5 per cent). As with older women, teenage girls are also more likely than boys to say they’d experienced unwelcome friend or follow requests (33 per cent vs 21 per cent) and misogynistic content (23 per cent vs 14 per cent).
From December, tech firms will have to start acting, under new online safety laws, to protect adults and children online – starting with tackling the most harmful, illegal content. Specific guidance for services on how we expect them to make online life safer for women and girls, and new Codes of Practice to protect children, will swiftly follow in the first half of 2025.
Gendered online behaviour
Men’s and women’s contrasting habits are also evident in other areas of online life, with other notable findings from the report including:
- Generative AI. Men are more likely than women to have used a generative AI tool in the past year (50 per cent vs 33 per cent). Women are more likely than men to say they don’t know what this technology is (29 per cent vs 19 per cent) and more likely to say they don’t know how to use it (30 per cent vs 23 per cent). Women are also more concerned about the risks of using generative-AI than men (17 per cent vs 11 per cent) and about its future impact on society (64 per cent vs 55 per cent).
- Online news. While men (49 per cent) and women (51 per cent) are equally as likely to visit an online news service in May 2024, the average time they spend on them varies significantly. Men spent 39 per cent more time than women on the top 10 news services in May 2024 – 4 hours 49 minutes compared to 3 hours 28 minutes.
- Dating and adult sites. Men are significantly more likely than women to visit online dating sites (65 per cent vs 35 per cent). Hinge is the only service in the top 10 where women outnumbered men (53 per cent vs 47 per cent). Online men are also twice as likely to visit a pornographic service than women; 43 per cent (10 million) did so in May 2024, compared with 16 per cent (3.8 million) of women. Male visitors spent an average of 1 hour 44 minutes on porn sites in May 2024, while female visitors spent around an hour.
- Health and fitness. Women are more likely to visit health and wellbeing sites than men (88 per cent vs 80 per cent). In May 2024, 57 per cent of NHS sites adult visitors were women while 43 per cent were men. This pattern was particularly pronounced among visitors to Healthline, WebMD, Fitbit, Medical News Today and Mayo Clinic, which all attracted around twice as many women as men.