uk: It’s arrived: the feminisation of the net

Forget the 20-something man playing online fantasy football and selling motorbike parts on eBay. The internet has a new user.For years cyberspace has been tailored to an audience of mainly young men but for the first time women webusers have taken the lead in key age groups. At the same time an army of silver surfers has emerged and the over 65s are spending more hours online than any other age group.
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Watching television, surfing the web, making phone calls and listening to the radio now take up an average 50 hours a week. While TV watching, radio listening and home phone use have all fallen since 2002, our daily minutes on the web have doubled.The UK has the most active internet population in Europe thanks to widely available broadband connections that are getting cheaper every year.
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Among 25- to 34-year-olds, women now spend more time using the internet than men, according to the Ofcom report published today. Although men account for the majority of web time in most other age groups, women have also taken a slight but significant lead in the 35-49 bracket.Ofcom’s researchers put the changing pattern partly down to young women finding more sites online that are relevant to them.
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2154494,00.html
http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2154392,00.htmlAlso see:
Internet bites into audiences for traditional media [Independent]
The rising popularity of social networking sites is putting more pressure on the business models of companies in the television and radio sectors, with internet usage eating into consumption of traditional media for the first time.UK citizens spend over 50 hours a week on the phone, surfing the internet, watching the television or listening to the radio, according to Ofcom’s annual Communications Market Report.
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2886408.ece
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10459396Silver surfers take over the internet
The internet is now dominated by silver surfers who spend more time online than any other group, according to a comprehensive study by the communications watchdog. The over-65s spend 42 hours a week online, four hours more than the most active users who are aged between 18 and 24, according to Ofcom’s annual report into the industry.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/23/nofcom123.xmlMove over geeks, women are top web users
Women aged between 25 and 49 are now spending more time on the internet than men as they become hooked on keeping in touch with friends online, according to figures published yesterday by the communications regulator Ofcom. The figures are particularly pronounced in the 25 to 34 age group, in which women now account for 55 per cent of time spent online – demon-strating that the medium once thought of as dominated by solitary, glass-wearing male nerds is rapidly being feminised.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article2310548.eceMore women and seniors said online (Reuters)
Britons are changing their media habits as more women and people over 65 go online and as more consumers opt for a single provider for their Internet, entertainment and phone services, an industry report says.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKL2270657220070822