Gender Profiles of Internet and Mobile Phone Use among Norwegian Adolescents

Abstract

The aim of this current project was to investigate gender profiles in the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), primarily the Internet and mobile phones, and problems encountered in the use of these technologies. The sample survey consisted of teenagers, 4294 15-16 year olds (2067 females and 2227 males) from two counties in Eastern Norway, who had participated in a nationwide survey administered by the National Institute of Public Health. The results showed that Norwegian girls used the Internet far more often social activities such as chatting and e-mail while boys preferred to use it for entertainment and computational activities, such as Gaming, E-commerce, viewing multimedia, and for programming. Girls used their mobile phones far more often for Text messaging (Short Message Service - SMS) than boys, who more frequently used their mobile phones for technical functions (alarm, gaming, Internet, etc.). There was no gender gap in everyday phone usage. Both genders experienced few of the problems associated with ICT use. The most frequent problem encountered by both genders was increased economic costs.