Men are drawn to Quora, X, and adult content, while women prefer health sites and are more likely to use Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram, a new report has found.
An annual report on digital habits in the UK revealed “stark differences” in the online lives of men and women, according to British communications regulator Ofcom.
Women across all age groups spend more time online, clocking an average of 4 hours and 36 minutes, compared to 4 hours and 3 minutes for men – an additional 33 minutes per day. This includes time on smartphones, tablets, and computers.
The gap is at its most extreme among Gen Z users. According to Ofcom, women aged 18-24 spend more than an hour longer each day online than their male counterparts – an average of 6 hours 36 minutes versus 5 hours 28 minutes for men.
The report also looked into the top 10 social media websites and apps. It found that women accounted for the majority of time spent on Pinterest (79%), Snapchat (66%), Instagram (64%), TikTok (62%), and Facebook (61%).
Meanwhile, men accounted for the majority of time spent on Quora (70%), X (63%), Reddit (61%), LinkedIn (60%), and YouTube (56%).
Despite spending more time online, more women reported having a good balance between their screen time and real-world activities than men (69% vs. 66%), but they’re more worried about online harms, according to the regulator.
'Gendered' online behavior
This could explain why women are more skeptical than men about the internet’s personal and societal value. Topics like extremism, human trafficking, suicide, female genital mutilation, and hateful and offensive content are “significantly” more worrying for women than men.
Similarly, teen girls are more concerned about sexual or pornographic, misogynistic, and violent content, as well as content promoting self-harm, or unhealthy diets and exercise.
When it comes to actual experience of online harm, men are more likely to encounter misinformation, scams or fraud, and hateful content, while women are more frequently targeted by unwelcome friend or follow requests, misogynistic content, and body image-related content.
Teenage boys are more likely than girls to encounter content showing dangerous stunts, while girls more commonly experience content that stigmatizes their bodies.
Ofcom observed “gendered” online behavior beyond social media as well. For example, men are more likely than women to have used a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool in the past year (50% vs. 33%). Women are more likely to say they don’t know how to use this technology, or what it is.
The report found that men and women were equally likely to visit online news services. However, in May 2024, men spent 39% more time than women on the 10 leading UK news websites, including outlets such as BBC, The Sun, and Mail Online – an average of 4 hours and 49 minutes compared to 3 hours and 28 minutes.
Men were also twice as likely to visit a pornographic service than women. Ten million, or 43%, did so in May 2024, compared with 3.8 million, or 16%, of women. Male visitors spent an average of 1 hour and 44 minutes on porn sites, while female visitors spent around an hour.
At 65% vs. 35%, men outnumber women on dating sites as well, with Hinge the only service in the top 10 that has more women, according to Ofcom. Health and wellbeing sites such as Healthline, WebMD, or FitBit attracted more women than men, as did the websites linked to the NHS, the UK’s public health service.
Other findings detailed in Ofcom’s report include Reddit’s status as the fastest-growing large social media platform in the UK, where it has overtaken Elon Musk’s X as the country’s fifth most used social network.
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