Virtually Seeing the Invisible

Mike J. Stasio, September 15, 2008, Essay #1, COML 509 A1 Fall

Professor Alexander Kuskis, Gonzaga University

When it comes to computers and Internet use, we are witnesses and historians of record. The Net generation, or “N-Geners” as they are sometimes labeled, grew up in the digital age. What sorts of gender differences exist among net users? And how are the gender demographics of N-Geners changing? These are two questions that preoccupied my thoughts as I read through several chapters in our Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) text. Thurlow et al. left me with the idea that even though the female gender uses the Internet, the space was primarily still male-dominated. Yet as is the case with so many things in life these days, gender demographics are fluid and ever-changing. “Gendered space refers to physical or virtual space” like “boardroom space” or “yoga/kitchen space” where activities within each space tend to associate more with a particular gender (Thurlow, 2004, p. 130). More recent statistics show girls and women are as frequent Internet users as men and the Net is no longer a male-dominated field. Just as more men are stay-at-home dads, in the kitchen cooking, and practicing yoga—more women are political shakers and movers and starting their own web-based businesses. Gender roles are blurred on the home front, at work, and in cyber space. The authors of CMC offer an interesting conceptualization of “gender and gendered space” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 130). Gender is thought of as a way to socially construct variations of “ideals and characteristics” that relate to a spectrum of categories from masculine to feminine that “should not be interchangeable with” a particular sex, “which refers to biological categories of male and female” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 130). This concept is thought to be “fluid rather than fixed” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 130). I would like to expand on this idea of a fluid concept and modify the label on any place in cyberspace.

Understanding gender behavior on the Net is a dynamic process where it is helpful, at least for me, to view findings contextually. In the web/tech world it seems the big ideas belong to the young. The N-Geners (born after 1977) grew up in the digital age and are comfortable with the technology they grew up with. It is invisible to them. Thirty and over generations are culturally different than the 20 something crowd. The over 65 group also tend to prefer the technologies they grew up with—television, land-line phones, cable television, books, and snail-mail. When we take these ideas into account, individual behavior may or may not fit the overriding dynamic for each generation. Each generational observation is a cultural snap shot of today that provides insight into how people interacted yesterday and may act tomorrow.

 
I came across a 2006 National Public Radio (NPR) Talk of The Nation report with Neal Conan and lead guest Lee Rainie on gender differences in Net use, and found some of the findings worthy of note. Mr. Rainie (2006), Founding Director of Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that men (under age 65) are attracted to masculine porn spaces, gaming or play, and sports sites that are action-driven with violence, while women tend to like feminine contextual social interaction spaces with role-playing, chat, and messaging (Tufekci & Spence, 2007). Men use email mostly for business and women interact more with interpersonal communication connecting with friends and family (Rainie, 2006; Tufekci & Spence, 2007). Women go to medical information sites, MapQuest, and educational assistance sites more often than men do, while men do more searching in general and research consumer reports (Rainie, 2006; Tufekci & Spence, 2007). Women worry about creeps in chat rooms and men are more adventurous (Rainie, 2006). Even with these preferences, mobile and high-speed technology has made Net behavior between young genders not all that different, and the single strongest predictor of whether a young adult is a Net user is whether that person is or has attended college (Rainie, 2006; Tufekci & Spence, 2007). Both young gender groups walk and drive around using the Net from PDA’s, iPhones, BlackBerrys, and Treos for instant messaging (SMS), blogging, podcasts, Voice over IP, and email and these areas online have a higher percentage of young feminine users (Rainie, 2006; Tufekci & Spence, 2007).

The big story is composition has changed due in large part to the embedded nature of high-speed and mobile technology (Rainie, 2006; Tufekci & Spence, 2007). Prior to these two technologies men were the early adopters more likely to take time on dial-up to research product purchases, and where to live and find a new job, but now women have completely caught up to men in their intensity and the interest in these kinds of activities (Raines, 2006). Men, 68%, are more likely to be the techie of the family computer, where 45% of women do the same (Rainie, 2006). Both genders have unconsciously embedded the Net into their lives using broadband and mobile access mediums not necessarily as a matter of choice, but more as a matter of unconscious utility. The Net has become an invisible technology where users are no longer aware of its presence, and this is when a technology is most powerful (Rainie, 2006). Rather than turn to books/cookbooks, or newspapers and magazines, both high-speed gender groups now use a computer and/or mobile device as machines that can provide a lot of the daily information, entertainment, and social communication engagement they need (Rainie, 2006).

When we look at the over 65 crowd, women have still not caught up to men on the Net. This may be attributed to this generation’s trend with men as primary breadwinners and women as homemakers, a hunter-gatherer concept. One third of men over 65 use the Net and one fourth of women plug-in. I gave my mother, age 71, a hand-me down Apple iMac desktop over a year ago, and she still has not opened the box. Mom prefers a landline phone, snail-mail, cable television (the T.V. is never off when I visit), books, newspapers and magazines, and she recently purchased a cell phone for travel needs. How to retrieve voice-mail is still a mystery to her. Dad, age 75, worked into his mid 60’s at a company where computers were used daily for internal communication, product monitoring, and line-control, so he made a seamless transition to the Net in retirement. He limits Net use to product research, current weather, news reports, stock updates, and email with friends and family, but he spends more time watching T.V and the endless repetitive whine of CNN.

Clearly, we need to expand our understanding of CMC and gender age differences on the Net of yesterday and conceptually view it as a relatively equally shared gender medium of different interests (Rainie, 2007; Tufekci & Spence, 2007); the Net is more like an echo space. Net use today reflects society as a normal form of interaction with fluid degrees of feminine and masculine behavior. Up to one-third of our “Greatest Generation” (over age 65) has adopted the Net as a transparent technology in their lives, preferring the invisible technologies they grew up with, T.V., snail-mail, books, and landline telephone. For many college students, major projects are naturally accomplished through the Net as I have found at Gonzaga University by working on Blackboard, and the majority of what takes place on the Net today is embedded into our daily culture as a productive way to live, work, communicate, and play. I wonder what the future holds for on-line business transactions, education, and virtual living—the prospects are a mystery and perhaps fuel for a future essay.

 

References

Rainie, L. (2006, January 3). Analysis: Study Details Gender Differences in Net Use. NPR: Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan in Washington DC. Retrieved on September 12, 2008, from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5080998&sc=emaf

Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet, Chapter on Women and the Internet (pp. 129- 136). London: Sage.

 
Tufekci, Z., & Spence, K. (2007, Aug). Online Social Network Sites: A Gendered Inflection Point in the Increasingly Social Web? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, NY. Retrieved on September 12, 2008, from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p182984_index.html