WIREDGOV

Stark differences in the online lives of men and women in the UK are revealed in Ofcom’s annual report into the nation’s digital habits.

• Online Gen Z women spend over an hour longer each day online than men of same age
• Men more avid users of gen-AI, online-dating and porn, while women more likely to use health sites
• Women and teenage girls more concerned about online harms
• Male-skewed Reddit overtakes X to become fifth most popular social media platform in UK

Across all adult age groups, women are spending more time online – on smartphones, tablets and computers – than men - clocking up an extra 33 minutes more each day in May 2024 on average at 4 hours 36 minutes, compared to 4 hours 3 minutes.

This gender gap is at its most extreme among ‘Gen Z’ internet users. Women aged 18-24 are spending more than an hour longer each day online than their male counterparts - an average of 6 hours 36 minutes, versus 5 hours 28 minutes for men (+21%).

Looking at the top 10 social media websites and apps, women account for the majority of time spent on Pinterest (79%), Snapchat (66%), Instagram (64%), TikTok (62%) and Facebook (61%). Men, on the other hand, account for the majority of time spent on Quora (70%), X (63%), Reddit* (61%), LinkedIn (60%) and YouTube (56%). [1]

Although women in general engage more heavily with the online world, they’re more likely than men to feel they have a good balance between their screen-time and real-world activities (69% vs. 66%). [2] But they’re also more sceptical about the internet’s personal and societal value, given they’re less likely than men to think that the benefits of the online world outweigh the risks (65% vs. 70%) and less likely to believe that the internet is a good thing for society (34% vs. 47%).

Women and teenage girls more worried about online harms

Similarly, women are much more troubled than men about the potential for harm online. Extremism (87% vs 77%), human trafficking (86% vs 76%), suicide (86% vs 77%), female genital mutilation (85% vs 74%) and hateful or offensive content (83% vs 67%) are significantly more worrying for women than men. [3] 

This is echoed among teenage girls aged 13-17, who are much more concerned than boys of the same age about sexual or pornographic (67% vs 48%), misogynistic (60% vs 51%), and violent content (64% vs 52%), as well as content promoting self-harm (75% vs 59%), or excessive or unhealthy dieting/exercise (51% vs 37%).

When it comes to actual experience of online harms, men are more likely to encounter misinformation (41% vs 37%), scams or fraud (36% vs 31%) and hateful content (27% vs 24%). Women are more likely to experience unwelcome friend or follow requests (30% vs 26%), misogynistic content (23% vs 19%) and body image related content (21% vs 13%). 

Teenage boys are more likely than girls to encounter content showing dangerous stunts (29% vs 19%). Girls more commonly experience online harms relating to body image, including: content stigmatising certain body types (25% vs 11%); content promoting excessive or unhealthy eating/exercise (19% vs 9%); group shaming (19% vs 10%) and eating disorder-related content (17% vs 5%). As with older women, teenage girls are also more likely than boys to say they’d experienced unwelcome friend or follow requests (33% vs 21%) and misogynistic content (23% vs 14%). 

From next month, tech firms will have to start acting, under new online safety laws, to protect adults and children online - starting with tackling the most harmful, illegal content. Specific guidance for services on how we expect them to make online life safer for women and girls, and new Codes of Practice to protect children, will swiftly follow in the first half of 2025.  

Gendered online behaviour

Men’s and women’s contrasting habits are also evident in other areas of online life, with other notable findings from the report including:

• Generative AI. Men are more likely than women to have used a generative AI tool in the past year (50% vs 33%). Women are more likely than men to say they don’t know what this technology is (29% vs. 19%) and more likely to say they don’t know how to use it (30% vs 23%). Women are also more concerned about the risks of using generative-AI than men (17% vs. 11%) and about its future impact on society (64% vs 55%).
• Online news. While men (49%) and women (51%) are equally as likely to visit an online news service in May 2024, the average time they spend on them varies significantly. Men spent 39% more time than women on the top 10 news services [4] in May 2024 - 4 hours 49 minutes compared to 3 hours 28 minutes. 
• Dating and pornography. Men are significantly more likely than women to visit online dating sites (65% vs. 35%). Hinge is the only service in the top 10 where women outnumbered men (53% vs. 47%). Online men are also twice as likely to visit a pornographic service than women; 43% (10.0m) did so in May 2024, compared with 16% (3.8m) of women. Male visitors spent an average of 1 hour 44 minutes on porn sites in May 2024, while female visitors spent around an hour.
• Health and fitness. Women are more likely to visit health and wellbeing sites than men (88% vs 80%). In May 2024, 57% of NHS sites adult visitors were women while 43% were men. This pattern was particularly pronounced among visitors to Healthline, WebMD, Fitbit, Medical News Today and Mayo Clinic, which all attracted around twice as many women as men. 

1. Women also use a slightly broader range of smartphone apps on average than men (39 vs 37). The top 10 most popular apps are broadly similar for both sexes, although TikTok is a notable exception, ranking 10th highest for women (46%) but only 16th for men (33%). When it comes to messaging apps, Whatsapp skews to a female audience (53% vs. 47% for men), while men are more likely to use Telegram and Discord (both 66% vs. 34% for women).
2. Men and women are equally as likely (68%) to have strategies in place to manage their online time and wellbeing. Among all UK adults, over a quarter (27%) set offline time for themselves or use ‘do not disturb’ or disable notifications (26%), while one in five (21%) don’t take their phone to bed.
3. There were no specific online harms where the level of concern expressed was higher for men than for women.
4. BBC, The Sun, Mail Online, Mirror, Guardian, Independent, Sky News, Apple News, Metro, Telegraph.