Geek Girls taking over

Sony's 'girly pink' PS2

A US study has found that women have become more adept than men at using some forms of technology, and are more likely to engage with social networking sites. However men still rule the roost when it comes to movie downloads.

The Women and Digital Lifestyles study was carried out by US market research company Solutions Research Group and interviewed over 2000 women of various ages.

The study (PDF link) found that women are more likely than men to stream online content from network TV websites, with 18 per cent of respondents claiming they had watched a stream during the past month, compared to 11 per cent of men.

Women better at video

Women are more at home with digital video recorders (DVR) too, with US women found to be using such technology an average 9.3 times a week, compared to 8.3 times by men.

Men still dominate the console gaming sector by some margin, even though the number of women playing console games had risen three percent from 2007’s figures to 38 per cent.

However women were found to have moved ahead of men in the PC gaming sector, with 70 per cent of women claiming they had played a PC game in the past month.

Men better at piracy

The survey also found that US women have taken to social networking more keenly than men, with 42 per cent of online women using sites like Facebook and MySpace compared to 41 per cent of men.

In fact the only major area where men continue to dominate is in digital movie and TV downloads. The survey found that man were 1.5 to 2 times more likely than women to use P2P software, or buy shows from iTunes.