Surprise! Latest Pew Study Finds a Gender Divide in Digital Kids

Give a stick to a boy and he’ll fashion a gun. Give the same stick to a girl and she’s likely to fashion a magic wand. Hardwired genetic differences or culturally influenced? The best minds tell us that it’s probably a combination of both.

Apparently things aren’t much different in the digital age. According to the latest Pew Internet Study, “Teens and Social Media,” these gender differences manifest themselves in cyberspace, too.

Girls are more likely to blog and put up pages in cyberspace, dominating the content creation space. Some 35% of all teen girls blog compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys are more likely (2x) to post videos to sites like YouTube. My guess is that boys are bigger video game players, too, though the study doesn’t offer any commentary there. Despite the widening circle of gamers, boys still dominate the space, with a special place in their hearts for first person shooter games.

Boys Get Short Shrift

Taking the analysis further, it’s time we looked at the content, and not just the vehicle for web distribution. What type of content are girls creating as opposed to boys?

From this vantage point, it’s clear that girls have the upper hand in this digital world. There are tons of great content sites for girls that encourage them to write, create, and share. Even the U.S. government has a site, Girl Power, with no equivalent for boys. Do boys already have enough? Try and search for a healthy site for teenage boys and you’re bound to turn up empty handed.

A few years ago I wrote a piece calling this the “Legally Blonde” Versus “Dumb and Dumber” syndrome. Reese Witherspoon may like to shop, but she goes to Harvard Law and changes the world whenever she’s not at Bloomingdale’s. Contrast this with Dumb and Dumber, Slacker, Balls of Fury, Booty Call, and others that make it cool to be an obnoxious jerk.

Time to figure out how to help boys beyond just giving them a stick. Girls reaped the rewards of an investment in their talents. Now the boys need the same break. The new Pew study is one more proof of that point. Girls are mastering communications. Boys are certainly mastering the use of the video hardware, but mostly for those silly, boys-will-be-boys kind of efforts. New media gives us a chance to even things up across the gender divide. Perhaps someday we’ll credit technology with being the first gender-equal playground.