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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Internet a girl's world: experts

By: Shannon Proudfoot

Posted: 03/6/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

OTTAWA -- It's a girl's world online, but not an easy landscape to navigate.

From cyber-bullying and sexting, to pressures to be thin, girls face a challenging online environment, according to researchers speaking Friday at a conference at the University of Ottawa. But girls are also using the Internet to build real-world friendships and try on different identities, they say, and they're more keen adopters of social networking than their male classmates.

"We sort of assume that technology is a boy world, but new research is indicating that it's a girl's world and that girls are jumping into online media at a faster rate than boys," says Valerie Steeves, a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa.

Steeves and Jane Bailey, an associate professor of law at the university, co-chaired a panel at the Taking Stock of Technology conference held Friday to launch the university's new Centre for Law, Technology and Society.

Some experts say online media are empowering girls to break out of the narrow roles defined by mainstream media, Steeves says, while others are concerned girls and women might be simply reproducing the same stereotypes online.

Sexting shines a spotlight on the conflicting messages girls face, says Bailey. In the United States, some underage girls have been charged or threatened with child-pornography charges after posting provocative photos of themselves, she says (she's not aware of that happening in Canada), so girls are "submerged" in a mainstream culture of hyper-sexualized imagery but face criminal punishment or chastisement when they emulate it.

"This imagery (is) so easily distributed and tradable and very difficult to get back once it's been released," she says of girls sending racy photos of themselves.

Most research on girls online focuses on those ages 10 to 17, Steeves says, and differences from boys emerge as they grow.

At younger ages, boys and girls are equally likely to post pictures or sound off about their opinions, she says. As they get older, boys are less likely to post pictures but more likely to share their addresses and cellphone numbers online. Older girls like posting photos but use privacy settings to control who can see any contact information that would allow someone to find them in "the real world."

"Their real-world experiences really do structure their online behaviour," Steeves says. "The research I've looked at argues that the differences reflect the fact that girls feel less safe in the real world than boys do."

Research suggests girls are more likely to be targeted by cyber-bullying than boys and there's growing evidence they're active instigators, too, Bailey says. At the same time, girls are more likely to post profiles on social-networking sites, Steeves says, and they include more information and lie less in their profiles than boys.

"When guys do communicate on the Internet, particularly at that older age group, they're much more likely to be happy talking with people they haven't met before, particularly to flirt," Steeves says. "Girls are much less likely to talk to people they haven't met before. They're more likely to use the Internet to consolidate that web of social relationships that's so important to them."

There's a huge emphasis on relationships, sexuality and weight -- or the lack of it -- for girls online, Steeves says, and corporations and brands are eager to get in on the action.

Her current favourite example is Seventeen magazine's Body Peace Project, which includes a website and Facebook page where girls can sign a pledge that they will ignore the niggling voices in their heads telling them they're not skinny or pretty enough.

"Fascinating if you think about it, because Seventeen is one of the vehicles in which these images are constantly bombarding girls," Steeves says.

-- Canwest News Service

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 6, 2010 C19

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