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Females Lead In Use Of Certain Tech: Survey

Toronto — American women are taking the lead over men in their use of certain technologies including watching streaming TV shows, DVR use, visiting of social media sites and even casual gaming, according to a new Women and Digital Lifestyles report recently released by Solutions Research Group.

The group said the survey was designed “to understand the digital lifestyles of American women and key drivers of adoption in four life stages: young singles, moms with young kids, moms with tweens/teens, and empty nesters.”

The report’s findings are primarily based on online interviews with 1,508 U.S. women between October 2006 to November 2007 and 517 additional interviews in February 2008. A spokesperson for the group told TWICE the group also surveyed approximately the same amount of men during each interview period.

The group’s key findings included the discovery that more women stream TV shows from network TV sites than men. According to a release, 15 percent of American women did so last month compared with 11 percent of men. Women with children under the age of 6 and English-speaking Hispanic women were found to be the most active streamers, with 19 percent and 21 percent doing so respectively.

Of households with DVR players, women were found to use the players an average of 9.3 times per week compared with 8.3 times for men. The report said DVD-owner women with kids watch 56 percent of their TV on a time-shifted basis, whereas male DVR owners were only found to do so 42 percent of the time.

Under the gaming umbrella, women took a slight lead in their use of PC games, while men continued to dominate console gaming. Seventy percent of women surveyed played a PC game in the last month as opposed to 69 percent of men. Among females aged 12 to 24, the group said it found 82 percent had used a PC game in the last month and that 66 percent of women aged 40+ had played a PC game.

In console gaming, 50 percent of men reported participation while only 38 percent of women played in the past month. The group did note, however, that the number for women was up from 35 percent the year before. Younger women appear to be adopting console gaming at a faster rate, with 69 percent of females aged 12 to 24 participating up from 63 percent last year; among women aged 25 to 29, 55 percent said they play console games, up from 47 percent last year.

Use of social-networking sites was also found to be slightly more popular among women than men; 42 percent of women said they visited a social media site in the last month as opposed to 41 percent of men. Among the female subcategories, the group found “young singles” and “empty nester” to be the most likely to visit a social-networking site with 74 percent and 25 percent respectively.

Among other notable findings, the group reported it found the biggest gap between men and women are of movie and TV show downloads. It found men were 1.5 to two times more likely than women to participate.

Also, the group said it found that men were more likely to transfer songs from their PC to a portable unit while women were more likely to transfer photos from their digital cameras to their PCs.

Finally, the group produced a list of the “top digital lifestyle products for women” based on the kinds of products women said they had bought for themselves or received as a gift between December 2007 and February 2008:

·         digital camera (24 percent);

·         wireless/cellphone (23 percent);

·         game console/ handheld (19 percent);

·         digital media player (14 percent);

·         laptop (14 percent); and

·         GPS navigation unit (10 percent).

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