Inclusive Internet

A PEW study has found that more women, Afro-Americans and seniors are now accessing information online. However the socio economic status of individuals on the net, their access to computers and internet connections still shows that there is a 'class' division in the United States. Whereas in Canada, Finland, and other Nordic countries we have a more economical balance. Greater computer use and access to the internet. Cause its cold here, Winter subjects us to being consumers of electronic entertainment. Alberta has the greatest number of computers and internet access of any province in Canada. And Canada outstrips the U.S. for computer use and access. However this study probably could apply to Canada as well.

If you look at the graphic at the right you will see that somethings never change. For instance women use the internet to get maps and directions. "Yep honey I know where I am going I don't need no stupid map....uh honey I think we are lost"...is still a guy thing. Sex and money still dominate male surfing, duh oh, visiting adult sites and trading stocks the gap is huge.

And women use email more than men it's just an extension of the phone, and the phone culture that developed in advanced captialism that women use and rely on to break out of the isolation of the nuclear family.

But Pew's analysis shows the emergence of new gender gaps, where young women, black women and older men are more likely to be online than their opposite sex peers.

Further, Pew found that men and women use the Internet in different ways, paralleling traditional offline behavior.

Among the new study's findings:

*Younger women are more likely to go online than younger men. Eighty-six percent of women ages 18 to 29 go online compared with 80 percent of their male peers.

*Older men are more likely to go online than older women. Thirty-four percent of men 65 and older go online compared with 21 percent of women in that age bracket.

*Black women outdistance black men in Internet use: 60 percent of African American women are Net users compared with 50 percent of black men.

*About two-thirds of Latino men and women are online, an 18 percent rise for women and a 14 percent increase for men over the past three years.

*Money changes everything. Internet usage goes up with income: 90 percent of men and 95 percent of women in households earning $75,000 or more are online compared with 49 percent of men and 48 percent of women earning less than $30,000 a year.