As part of the job I spend a lot of my free time looking around the internet for anything interesting involving women and the Internet.  During one very such search I recently came across a great article on BBC News online from December 1998 entitled ‘Women’s Growing Addiction to the Internet’.  The photo of an old Trinitron screen was the first thing that caused my laughter – not least of all because I am presently working on one - promptly followed by research findings that:

‘A stereotype has developed that the typical [Internet] addict is a teenager, usually male, with little or no social life or no self confidence’

Contrary to the stereotype, the research had found that of 445 Internet users although, thirty-something women were more likely to be addicted to the internet than their teenage male compatriots.

The research itself seemed somewhat flaky – they had not decided how best to define addiction and left it as ‘[someone] who used the internet a lot and was positive about it.’ Hang on a minute – doesn’t that define just about every user out there now?  What’s more they had decided that anyone drawn to the Internet was already likely to possess an addictive personality, before mentioning that women were more likely to enter into their research than men any way.

It is interesting to see that ten years on, the stereotype still seems to exist, and yet potentially how underestimated the net was in those days – addicts as someone ‘who like it’!  This goes to show how wrong research can be, after all the results of this particular one would label all tech entrepreneurs as depressed, introverted addicts who definitely wouldn’t attend Meetups, but do use the internet a lot and like it.