Deborah Fallows Internet Quotations

This tells us the internet is another place where people increasingly go to while away their time or just to hang out.

Broadband access and an ever-growing volume of Web content make the Internet a tempting go-to place, and they are likely drivers behind this changing Web surfing habit. People can break up their workday by snacking on the Internet at their desktops. Or they can kill a little waiting time by browsing the Web through their cell phones. Or they can fill a lazy few hours just going online to see what's up.

This moment in Internet history will be gone in a blink. We may soon look back on it as a charming, even quaint moment, when men reached for the farthest corners of the Internet, trying and experimenting with whatever came along, and when women held the Internet closer and tried to keep it a bit more under control.

The Internet is a destination. It's some place to see what's going on, to hang out, to find new things. You go there with the expectation that there is something interesting happening and you'll be informed or entertained just by going there.

If there is an overall pattern of differences here, it is that men value the Internet for the breadth of experiences it offers, and women value it for the human connections.