E-mail Brings Good Things to Life

May 10 2000

Contrary to the belief that the Internet isolates people from one another, a new study suggests that the Net actually improves communication among Americans, especially women.

Sending and receiving e-mail has always been the most common activity of Internet users, but the "Pew Internet and American Life" study suggests that women find it more valuable for family communication than men do. Sixty-one percent of women and 51 percent of men surveyed said e-mail exchanges have improved communication with family members.

The Pew study found that e-mail also improves relationships between friends, though the gender distinction remained. Seventy-one percent of women said they have developed better connections with friends through e-mail, compared with 61 percent of men.

Women are more likely than men to communicate via e-mail about something that upsets or worries them, according to Pew. Seventy-four percent talk about their jobs to family, and 86 percent of women e-mail relatives to pass on something they've recently heard.

Respondents said e-mail also encourages frank discussions. Thirty-one percent of e-mail users said it's easier for them to say blunt or unpleasant things to a family member in e-mail rather than in face-to-face conversation.

The study also found that e-mail has brought 26 million Americans closer to family members. Some 24 million Americans reported that they have used the Net and e-mail to locate old friends and family, while 54 million Americans belong to a family where someone has used the Net to research genealogy.

The study also found that more than 9 million U.S. women surfed the Net for the first time during the past six months, representing nearly 10 percent of adult American women. In 2000, women will lead in the number of new Net users globally, and 61 percent of new U.S. Internet users will be women, according to the Angus Reid Group. This recent growth has all but closed the U.S. digital gender gap.

The income gap also is narrowing. The Pew study found that females new to the Web tend to be less upscale than earlier Internet newbies. In fact, 47 percent of the newest women online have no education past high school, 54 percent earn less than $50,000, and 53 percent are mothers of children under 18.