How Does Instant Messaging Affect Interaction Between the Genders?

Is the Internet really the great equalizer between males and females? Or do men and women still communicate differently with each other even when they’re communicating online? Seeking to answer at least some aspects of these questions, I explored how the medium of instant messaging affects the way men and women act. To discover whether gender differences exist in the intimate setting of this one-on-one online medium – and if so, what kind and to what extent – I analyzed the logs of instant messaging exchanges of 50 pairs of college students that had taken place between September 2002 and May 2003. I divided these logs into three types: male-male, female-female, and male-female. In each pair, at least one of the participants is a student in my dorm at Stanford University. I discovered that gender differences similar to those found in real space do exist in instant messaging among college students, but that the nature of instant messaging lessens those differences in mixed gender conversations. Male-male and female-female conversations each possess distinctive characteristics, indicating that there are gender-based tendencies in instant messaging. However, in male-female conversations, instant messaging equalizes some of the