Online Communities More Important To Guys

from the don't-make-me-leave-my-WoW-buddies dept

Despite the fact that more women than men are now online, there still seems to be some perception out there that the internet is still a male-dominated world. Perhaps one reason for that is that men value their online connections more. At least that's the results coming from a new study showing that, on average, men tend to feel stronger connections with online communities. Of course, the report doesn't seem to explore why that is. It could potentially have something to do with the fact that early on, the internet really was male-dominated, and the community structures fit better with typical male interactions. It will be interesting to see if this remains the same, or if, over time, there are better forms of community that allow both men and women to feel equally strongly connected to their online communities.

Filed Under: communities, connections, men, women

Women Are From Venus, Men Like Video Games

from the boys-and-girls dept

The video game gender debate has been going on for years now, fueled mainly by complaints that the video game industry continues to make games that primarily appeal to males. Perhaps it's not the fault of the video game industry, but a result of a psychological tendency. A new study reports that men's brains are more responsive to video games than women's. According to MRI scans, the zones of the brain associated with reward and addiction are much more active in men's brains when they played a simple video game. Last year, there was an effort to get the American Medical Association to classify video game addiction as an official disorder -- perhaps these folks now have some more empirical evidence to support that claim.

Filed Under: men, video games, women

Men Overconfident About How Secure They Are Online

from the the-internet-is-no-place-to-pretend dept

This probably won't come as much of a surprise, but a new study shows that guys are much more likely than women to overestimate how secure their computers really are. The truth, however, is that both men and women are usually equally vulnerable. Of course, the study was paid for by a security company, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt. For example, while it talks about vulnerabilities, it doesn't seem to say who is actually getting infected with malware more often.

Filed Under: men, security, women