Brigitte I bet it's also that she doesn't use for wikipedia for work.
I think there was some study that showed that wikipedia and similar sites (in japan or
England maybe) were accessed during work hours. I wish i could remember the details
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 16, 2011, at 5:37 PM, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
----- Original Message ----
From: Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org>
To: gendergap <Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wed, February 16, 2011 12:51:48 PM
Subject: [Gendergap] Fwd: [PRESS] Discovery News: Is There A Gender Gap
Online?
<snip>
So when it comes to gender and the Internet today, the more pertinent
question isn’t whether more men or women are surfing the Net, but
whether they’re surfing the Net differently.
<snip>
Completely anecdotal but I had an interesting conversation with my sister on Jan
15. She happened to be in-town staying the weekend with me and my hosting
duties conflicted with the last minute WikiX meet-up so I asked her to come. In
talking about this she asked me, "What do people use Wikipedia for anyways?" I
couldn't believe she had really been unexposed to WP so I took her iPhone found
the Google app and went through the whole alphabet on letter at a time to see
her previous searches (BTW with her permission!). None of them would have
brought her to Wikipedia. The large majority of them were shopping related.
She has her BA, was a pharma rep until recently becoming a SAHM. Her
traditional nuclear family with 2.5 kids has two laptops, an older desktop,
and some kind of system that allows the TV to be a internet browser. Age-wise
she falls in-between GenX and the Millennials. She uses the internet daily.
Online she is really into coupons, shopping, and plans to start a cooking blog.
And she honestly hadn't come across Wikipedia enough to understand what it was.
Before this conversation I would have never believed that someone who considers
becoming a blogger would had no understanding of what Wikipedia was and why
people *used* it (i.e. as opposed to why they edited it).
In comparison, we are about the same age and spend about the same about of time
online in our daily lives. However, I live alone, never finished my degree, work
at an unremarkable office job, own a single laptop, don't even have a smart
phone, but I have edited Wikipedia and Wikisource since 2006. I suspect it is
the more basic life-style differences rather than the internet based ones that
fuel the gender gap.I think this study raises a good point the internet
participation, or likely a life-style well integrated with internet
technologies, has no correlation with Wikipedia editing. The internet isn't
what it was ten years ago. So while good internet access is imperative for
participation in the wikis, the internet is too big and ubiquitous for us to
assume any longer that everyone with good internet access will be brought to
Wikipedia. Even though that was true in the past.
Complete speculation: I think this shows up stronger with women than men,
because more men were early adopters back when the internet invariably led to
Wikipedia. I don't think that amoung populations just getting good internet
acces today that this gender gap will be quite so large. Although I still
believe that the fact the interesting-to-men-topics have been so well-covered in
Wikipedia by those male early adopters will ensure that the gender gap continues
without intervention. (i.e. the gap might shrink in these populations because we
will gain less of the men rather than gaining more women.)
Birgitte SB
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