Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Women More Likely to Call Tech Support, Survey Shows

by Amar Toor on November 10, 2009 at 11:01 AM

Proving that it's no longer restricted to the domain of toilet seat treatment, the great gender divide has extended to the world of technology, as well. The BBC reports that women are substantially more likely to read the instruction manual for a given product before calling for assistance, according to a recent survey conducted by the phone tech-help service Gadget Helpline.

The survey of 75,000 calls received between September 25th and October 23rd reveals that 64-percent of male callers had not read the manual prior to placing their SOS phone calls, compared to just 24-percent of women who had bothered to put up instructions before dialing out. Furthermore, 12-percent of male and 7-percent of females just had to plug in the device in question to solve their problems. The majority of the questions revolved around syncing devices up with each other, as well as newly released and unfamiliar gadgets.


It's hard to really extrapolate too far beyond the scope of these results -- the average caller was 35 years old, and Gadget Helpline is actually a subscription service, requiring a monthly payment of $3 from users. Demographic specificity aside, the entire question may just be a close relative of the age old "ask for directions" gender dichotomy. Men like to figure things out for themselves, just like they like finding their own way on the highway, without the assistance of an instruction manual or third-party directions. Makes sense, right?

But, you could easily look at it another way, and argue that reading an instruction manual is more akin to reading a road map, and that calling any help service at all is more similar to pulling over and asking for directions. In this light, then, it would've been interesting to know the gender breakdown of the entire customer sample. If there is a marked discrepancy, with more female callers than male, that would reinforce the old roadway stereotype. But what if the male percentage of total callers was in fact higher? Does this mean that guys in fact do ask for directions, counter to cultural norms (just not in front of people)? And that a majority of those who ask for directions never even bothered to actually read the "road map?"

Our head hurts. [From: BBC via BoingBoing]

Tags: helpline, survey, tech support, TechSupport, top

Comments

1

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular