Technology Differences: Women vs. Men

Women Use Technology Differently than Men: Here’s How

The consumer market consistently reveals that women not only use technology, they are early adopters and buy more than men in certain cases. But that doesn’t mean women use their smartphones and laptops the same way as their male counterparts, or for the same reasons.

A group of women leaders and entrepreneurs discussed this topic on a panel at Internet Week a couple of years ago, and here were their take-away messages:

1. Women use technology for what it can do, not for its own sake. Women will look for value first.
2. Women have less tolerance for bad user interfaces. It doesn’t matter how cool the gadget is – if it’s hard to use, then it won’t be.
3. Women do more research before making a purchase. Marketers and manufacturers can support this by providing useful, digestible information about their products.
4. Women hate stereotyping. Don’t take a tablet and paint it pink and expect women to buy it.[1]

Whether you create products, design marketing messages or happen to be the curious type, you will find the following statistics about how women use technology interesting:

Social Media [2]

Women not only use social media more often than men, but they use it in different ways and to access different kinds of information and entertainment.

• Women use social media for staying in touch, blogging and sharing and researching how-to information. Men use social media for business and dating more than women do.
• Women are more likely to like and follow brands.
• LinkedIn is the only social platform that men use more than women.

Smart Phones

Two-thirds of U.S. consumers own smartphones[3], with slightly more women owning one than men.[4]

• Women use their phones more than men for most common activities, except:
  • Watching videos
  • Listening to music
  • Reading news directly from news sources (i.e. not social media)

• The activities that women do on their phones much more than men are:
  • Playing games
  • Accessing social networks
  • Subscribing to text message coupons[5]

• Men, however, shop more and spend more on their smartphones[6]
• Men also use the GPS more

In part, the growth of technology adoption by women can be attributed to the fact that modern technology is all about social interaction and making connections – activities that women value and excel at. However, the true reason is more likely that technology has finally reached the point where devices are small enough and powerful enough to solve real problems in the real world

[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dispatch-internet-week-women-tech-213900371.html
[2] https://www.marketingtechblog.com/women-men-use-social-media-mobile-differently/
[3] http://mashable.com/2014/02/13/smartphone-us-adoption/
[4] http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/mobile-millennials-over-85-percent-of-generation-y-owns-smartphones.html
[5] http://www.exacttarget.com/sites/exacttarget/files/deliverables/etmc-2014mobilebehaviorreport.pdf
[6] http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/study-suggests-men-use-their-smartphones-to-shop-more-than-women-246216.html