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E-mail Addiction: Battle of the Sexes!

by Tom Conlon on July 26, 2007 at 04:59 AM

E-mail Addiction: Battle of the Sexes!
Not too many men we know are addicted to shoe shopping, just as it isn't so easy to find a female who paints her face in team colors every Monday night in the fall and spends the better part of her salary on an all-inclusive sports cable package. But what about e-mail? When it comes to the domain of the inbox, who's more addicted?

This past June, America Online (Switched.com's daddy) surveyed 4,025 Internet users age 13 and older about their e-mail usage. Lots of fun information was uncovered, including the different attitudes men and women have toward electronic communication. When it comes to men, women and e-mail, the survey found:

  • Women have fewer e-mail accounts on average (2.6) than men (3.0). (MORE ADDICTED: MEN)
  • There is virtually no difference in how long men and women have had e-mail. (MORE ADDICTED: NEITHER)
  • 60 percent of all respondents who work outside of the home check personal e-mail on the job an average of three times. Women are more likely than men to feel guilty about doing so (31 percent vs. 26 percent). (MORE ADDICTED: MEN)
  • Men are more likely than women to check their work e-mail over the weekend (69 percent vs. 62 percent). (MORE ADDICTED: MEN)
  • Men are more likely than women to have checked their e-mail in the middle of the night (44 percent vs. 36 percent). (MORE ADDICTED: MEN)
  • Women spend about 15 extra minutes a day on e-mail than men do. (MORE ADDICTED: WOMEN)
  • Despite having fewer accounts, on average, than men, women check e-mail more frequently daily (4.6 times) than men (4.3). (MORE ADDICTED: WOMEN)
  • Men have gone longer than women without checking their e-mail (nine vs. eight days). (MORE ADDICTED: WOMEN)
  • Men are more likely than women to check their e-mail from a portable device in restaurants, while eating out alone, at a Wi-Fi HotSpot and in business meetings, while women are more likely than men to check e-mail on a portable device in bed in their pajamas. (MORE ADDICTED: MEN)
  • Women are more likely than men to send thank you notes and birthday wishes via both e-mail and regular mail (31 percent vs. 20 percent), while men are more likely to send them only via regular mail (33 percent vs. 22 percent). (MORE ADDICTED: WOMEN)
  • Women are more likely than men to think they are addicted to e-mail (16% vs. 13%). (MORE ADDICTED: NEITHER)

It's a tight race, and of course some of the conclusions we've drawn could be argued, but it looks as though that pesky Y chromosome has made men a little more susceptible to e-mail addiction. But let's not feel too bad about ourselves, fellas. Women will always have that insatiable lust for chocolate of theirs.

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Tags: addiction, e-mail, email, female, IM, male, messages, messaging, results, sexes, survey

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