LOL. i think lots of the hours I logged in were for researching personal
interests or time killing....I'm sorry, I didn't express it well, but
essentially in offices, particularly in the afternoon, people's internet use
sky rocketed. I suspect b/c they want to appear busy, but are surfing. But I
imagine this is a reality that affects who is contributing. Since you said
she was a pharmacy rep, I just imagined she spent lots of time in face to
face interactions, meeting with doctors etc. ...not chained to a desk, etc.
On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 11:52 PM, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Well she no longer works. But certainly she had
little use for it (and
little
time for the internet at all) when she did work. I do occasionally use
Wikpedia
for work to confirm chemicals being asked for (i.e. Was Muriatic Acid
another
name for Hydrochloric acid or Hydrofluoric acid) Chemical names are very
non-standard on the application side. For five years an co-worker from
Albania
had been asking people for where in the hardware store he might find the
Calcium
Hydroxide for a special recipe. He knew it was a commonly used item but had
been
completely unable to locate it in America and everyone would tell him they
had
never heard of it. Finally I looked it up on Wikipedia and said "Oh you
want
LIME." And that is the majority of my work-time usage of Wikipedia,
figuring
out answers for the water-cooler.
Birgitte SB
----- Original Message ----
From: Sandra <sandratordonez(a)gmail.com>
To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects
<gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wed, February 16, 2011 4:59:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Fwd: [PRESS] Discovery News: Is There A Gender
Gap
Online?
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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--
Sandra Ordonez
Web Astronaut
"Helping you rock out in the virtual world."
*www.collaborativenation.com*