Women vs men: Who's more web-savvy?

Women in the younger age brackets are spending more time online than their male counterparts but it's still a close run race between the sexes.

Women aged 25 to 34 are spending 20 per cent more time online than their male counterparts, research reveals.

According to the annual Ofcom Communications Market Report 2007, 2.18 million women in the 25 to 34 age group used the internet during April 2007 - compared to 1.83 million men in the same age group.

Top 20 UK websites by time spent online, April 2007 (million hours)*

ebay.co.uk (19.3)
bebo.com (9.1)
bbc.co.uk (8.2)
google.co.uk (8.2)
myspace.com (8.1)
msn.com (7.0)
yahoo.co.uk (5.3)
youtube.com (4.5)
facebook.com (4.3)
runescape.com (3.9)
google.com (3.4)
yahoo.com (2.9)
aol.co.uk (2.2)
live.com (2.2)
orange.co.uk (1.5)
amazon.co.uk (1.4)
wikipedia.org (1.4)
tiscali.co.uk (1.4)
piczo.com (1.3)
virginmedia.com (1.1)

*figures from Nielsen/Netratings

Looking across all the age groups, women are spending slightly more time online than men, clocking up a total of 29 hours, nine minutes, and 28 hours, 51 minutes respectively on the average month, according to Ofcom.

But, overall, more men are online in total, with 55 per cent of total internet use coming from men in April 2007, the research reveals.

Silver surfers are also getting web-savvy: one-quarter of all Britons online are aged over 50, and over-50s account for 30 per cent of the total time spent on the internet.

Among the older age groups, men spend more time online than women, with only 21 per cent of internet usage among over-65s coming from women.

The average internet user spends one hour online each day, with the UK favouring retail and social networking sites, according to the report.