Deborah Fallows Quotations

Web surfing has kind of taken its rightful place as a routine activity. It's not necessarily a time killer, but a time filler.

Men tend to be attracted to online activities that are far more action-oriented, while women tend to value things involving relationships or human connections.

More than men, women are enthusiastic online communicators, and they use e-mail in a more robust way. Women are more likely than men to use e-mail to write to friends and family about a variety of topics: sharing news and worries, planning events, forwarding jokes and funny stories. Women are more likely to feel satisfied with the role e-mail plays in their lives, especially when it comes to nurturing their relationships. And women include a wider range of topics and activities in their personal e-mails.

For men, it's just, 'Give me the facts. For women, it's 'Let's talk about this. Are you worried about this problem?' It's keeping in touch and connecting with people in a richer way.

I think the real interesting story is the young women, because that is the one age cohort where there are many more women online. The younger women are just much more comfortable with the Internet.

The online world is becoming a destination in and of itself -- and that has potentially big consequences for the way people spend their time.

This takes Web surfing into a different category. It is a destination in of itself.

Women are the ones who ask directions and men are the ones who never stop to ask directions, so they do it online as well.

This tells us the internet is another place where people increasingly go to while away their time or just to hang out.

Broadband access and an ever-growing volume of Web content make the Internet a tempting go-to place, and they are likely drivers behind this changing Web surfing habit. People can break up their workday by snacking on the Internet at their desktops. Or they can kill a little waiting time by browsing the Web through their cell phones. Or they can fill a lazy few hours just going online to see what's up.

Once you get past the commonalities, men tend to be attracted to online activities that are far more action-oriented, while women tend to value things involving relationships or human connections.

This moment in Internet history will be gone in a blink. We may soon look back on it as a charming, even quaint moment, when men reached for the farthest corners of the Internet, trying and experimenting with whatever came along, and when women held the Internet closer and tried to keep it a bit more under control.

It puts Web surfing in the ranks of the most popular things that people do online on any given day. It elevates it to a different status. People just go and do it a lot more, on a more regular basis than before.

The Internet is a destination. It's some place to see what's going on, to hang out, to find new things. You go there with the expectation that there is something interesting happening and you'll be informed or entertained just by going there.

Instead of tapping your toes or drumming your fingers, you can go to the Internet.

If there is an overall pattern of differences here, it is that men value the Internet for the breadth of experiences it offers, and women value it for the human connections.