Over the years, there has been a lot of research into gender and the use of technology, particularly the telephone and the Internet. These studies have used different methods in order to discover whether there are notable differences in the ways in which men and/or women use technology in communication. For this assignment, I have researched some studies into the relationships between gender and the telephone, followed by the Internet, and after briefly describing them will evaluate their usefulness and the reliability of their findings.
In the late 1980s, Ann Moyal conducted a national study in Australia with the aim of researching women’s use of the telephone. The research undertaken was extensive, involving 15 women from different parts of Australia and with varied personal and professional lives asked to give 7-10 dissimilar women each a questionnaire of 40 pages in length. In consequence, results were obtained from all types of women; differing in age, profession, social status/class, income and place of residence. The women who participated in this study were required to record the telephone calls that they made, and define them according to their purpose (either as motive-based, such as for business transaction, or socially, for instance, maintaining contact with relations and friends).
This study successfully showed a pattern in the findings: that those women who spent less time in the home or with friends were more frequently making task-based telephone calls. Telephone calls of a personal nature (as a means of maintaining closeness with friends or family) were found to be more popular with these women. Calls were made mainly for what Moyal refers to as ‘kin-keeping’ ie. keeping in touch with family members. It is Moyal’s opinion that ‘women keep in touch with their families via telephone more than men’ (http://courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca/cmn3104/phone.htm) and this study certainly proves a great deal of women’s telephone calls are in fact for this purpose.
Michele Martin analyses ‘cultural and social practices in the development of the telephone system’ (http://courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca/cmn3104/phone.htm) in order to discover the initial relationship between men and women and this type of technology, concentrating on the telephone company Bell. This is in contrast to most studies which look at the telephone usage of today. It is her belief, not dissimilar to Moyal’s, that women use, and have used, the telephone largely for communicating with friends and relations, so much so that she proposes that if it were not for this, then ‘this inconspicuous domestic technology that we take for granted today would not be as ubiquitous as it is now’ (http://courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca/cmn3104/phone.htm). Her study consists of researching the history of Bell, and the relationship between gender and the telephone when this technology was new. She notes how the telephone’s intended users were in fact businessmen, yet it is thanks to its large usage by women (as a means to socialise) that such claims that this medium was a ‘germ collector’ were much sooner banished (http://courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca/cmn3104/phone.htm). Her research shows how the telephone became ‘feminised’: it has, since its formation, been linked with women due to the fact that women were believed to be better telegraph operators as they possessed the ‘virtuous qualities’ that men did not have (http://courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca/cmn3104/phone.htm).
Another research study into women and their use of this medium, named ‘Prospect’, concentrates on a small area of mid-Western America. As opposed to Moyal’s study, which analyses the telephone use of various women all over Australia, this research, conducted by Lana Rakow in the mid 1980s, is on a much smaller geographical scale. She collected both recent, and old information on this little community’s telephone company, and looked at its effects on the community members. In order to obtain information on the women’s telephone habits, she interviewed several of them, each of whom were diverse. The results she discovered were that the majority of women’s calls were ‘consigned to domestic concerns and relationships within the private, versus the public (and usually masculine) sphere’ (http://courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca/cmn3104/phone.htm).
American researchers Dordick and LaRose randomly sampled American men and women
across the nation in order to study telephone usage. Part of their research
involved finding out the location of the household telephone, and this enhanced
their findings. They discovered that women were likely to spend double the amount
of time on the phone than men were (174 minutes per week as opposed to only
83 minutes per week), and more frequently made social calls, and the room in
which the telephone was usually placed was the kitchen, emphasising this medium’s
reputation as a feminised technological communications device (http://info.tc.msu.edu/faculty/larose/html/fonbehav.html).
These research studies are only a few which I have selected, and there are in
fact many more studies on this topic. However, I have chosen these ones because
they are diverse, and I will now elaborate on their diversity in my evaluation
of them so as to reach a decision as to which is the best method when doing
a study of this kind.
All of these studies which I have outlined above come to the same conclusion— that there is a greater likelihood of women using the telephone more frequently and for a longer duration than that of men. They therefore all agree that the telephone as ‘a feminised medium of communication in that women use the telephone to a greater extent than men’ (http://www.dcu.ie/communications/iegis/Marial2.htm). Men use the telephone mostly for a particular function, so that the call is task-orientated as opposed to just phoning someone for a chat, which is the motive for most calls made by women. Due to the fact that the results of each of the above studies are similar leads me to believe that they are all fairly accurate and true. However, I think that some ways of collecting data are better than others. For example, Moyal gave her participants questionnaires to fill in, whereas Rakow interviewed hers. It is my opinion that the participants are more likely to give a more accurate answer if they are putting their responses onto paper. If they disclose their responses to another person, they may be embarrassed, for instance, of the number of calls they make to family members, or the duration of such calls, and thus slightly alter the truth in order to avoid any awkwardness they might otherwise experience if they revealed such details. They might also feel pressurised into giving immediate replies and in doing so, may not fully consider what they are saying, whereas if they were to write their responses on a questionnaire, they would be able to spend more time on each question, and in consequence, perhaps give more accurate answers. Both Moyal’s and Rakow’s study unfortunately concentrate solely on one sex (women) and the relationship of that particular sex with the telephone, as do a large number of studies. However, although it would be more interesting if exactly the same research procedure could have been carried out on the other sex, both researchers mention commonly known and agreed upon observations about men and their telephone usage in order to allow those reading their study to notice the differences between men and women and their use of this medium. Moyal and Dordick & LaRose have both ensured through random samples of their participants that they range in age, profession and background, therefore accurately producing a cross section of the population. On the other hand, Rakow’s participants do not vary in geographical location, as she only includes women from a small community. In consequence, her findings can not be said to be true to a large part of the population, unlike Moyal’s and Dordick & LaRose’s discoveries. In her research, Rakow revealed that women’s frequent use of the telephone was prompted by their isolation in society. The situation for the women involved in her research is quite different however to the situation of women living in other locations. Her participants had ‘limited opportunities imposed by their husband’s or father’s situation’, therefore forcing them to make a greater use of the telephone in order to reduce this feeling of loneliness. Martin’s research is useful and interesting as it offers some explanation of men and women’s differing usage of the telephone today, by exploring the social situation of the telephone at the time. Yet, it is not as valuable or as helpful as the other studies mentioned which concentrate on researching telephone usage of the 21st century.
There have been a number of studies into men and women’s use of the Internet for communication, one of which is Sue Turnbull’s research report carried out in December 1996, entitled ‘Getting Connected: Gender and the future of online services in the home’. Her research is centred around a case study of an Australian family (the Brown’s) situated on the outskirts of Melbourne, whom she analyses in order to discover the ways in which each family member utilises technology in the home. So as to offer an explanation of the family’s use of such technologies as the Internet, she observes their lifestyles in order to gather motives for why they would need and want to go online. She discovers that Holly Brown, the 10 year old daughter, is the only family member who has the desire to communicate with others via. the Email facility on the Internet (in contrast, the father, Mark, uses the computer for entertainment purposes, as does his 6 year old son Sam, as well as for work, which may or may not involve emailing colleagues/clients). However few of Holly’s friends have email, which gives her dissatisfaction, showing that the main purpose of the email for Holly is (similarly to her use of the telephone) to socialise with her peers and ‘maintain social relations outside the home rather than in the home’ (http://teloz.latrobe.edu.au/teloz/reports/turnbull.doc).
On a much larger scale, Jane Wheelock conducted a study in 1992 into the home computer use of 39 families located in the North of England, ‘a peripheral region of the national economy’ (http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/1997/Television.and.the.Inter.html). Contrasting to Turnbull’s results where it is a young girl who communicates through the Internet via. email, Wheelock’s findings showed that it was in fact more probable for boys to use the computer for the purpose of socialising as opposed to girls. It ‘increases boys’ socialising and shifts its locus towards the home’, which one would usually expect to be the case with girls rather than boys, as the findings reveal.
Sharmila Pixy Ferris has examined an on-line discussion group as a way to research whether women act in a similar manner to the way they do when speaking face to face. She notes many features common to men and women when engaging in face to face communication, such as men’s tendency to interrupt women, issue commands, refuse to discuss some topics raised by women and swear and use slang. Women, however, are generally more polite and willing to discuss the man’s choice of topic when speaking with them. To see whether these gender characteristics are maintained on-line, Ferris visited the discussion group PSYBER-L@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM in order to find out. The group consists of mainly academics and professionals in the field of psychology, is fairly small and its visitors are both male and female. By visiting this discussion group, Ferris noticed that similarly to face to face communication, the topics were mostly male choices. Only one out of four topics was begun by a woman, the rest being started by men. Likewise, she also discovered that men were not as polite as women, instead they swore more and were critical as well as, it could be said, egotistical as they posted messages a great deal longer than women’s. Women were found to be more supportive and apologetic to other members of the group. They were ‘relationally more focused on positive interaction’ than men with the wish for continued dialogue/interaction whereas the men did not require any feedback (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~ipct-j/1996/n3/ferris.txt).
A similar study by Herring looked in close detail at the structure of posts delivered to two mailing lists; LINGUIST (of which the majority of subscribers are men) and WMST (mostly women). These two places of discussion were examined in order to find out whether or not there were noticeable differences between the behaviour of men and women on line. Through outlining the structure of messages posted to these forums, he observed that women were more encouraging towards others as there were more ‘aligned variants’ from them in contrast to the arrogant and argumentative males who used more ‘opposed variants’ (Wallace 1999: 216)
Both Herring’s and Ferris’ studies are alike in that they target discussion groups in order to attempt to find differences between the sexes, which they do successfully. They reach comparable conclusions which encourages me to believe that the findings are accurate. Turnbull’s analysis of one family is interesting although not useful in providing results for a whole population due to the fact that there were only four participants in total in her study. It is my opinion that Wheelock’s report is much more reliable as she has a much greater number of participants than Turnbull has.
January 2003