A wide-ranging look at the way women and men use the Internet shows that men continue to pursue many Internet activities more intensively than women, and that men are still first out-of-the-block in trying the latest technologies. At the same time, there are trends showing that women are catching up in overall use, and are framing their online experience with a greater emphasis on deepening connections with people.

A report highlights how men's and women's use of the Internet has changed over time. The percentage of women using the Internet still lags slightly behind the percentage of men. Women under 30 and black women outpace their male peers. However, older women trail dramatically behind older men.

86 percent of women ages 18-29 are online, compared with 80 percent of men that age; whereas 34 percent of men ages 65 and older are online, compared with 21 percent of women that age. 60 percent of black women compared with 50 percent of their male counterparts are online. On a typical day, 67 percent of online men use the Internet, compared with 64 percent of women.

In most categories of Internet activity, more men than women are participants, but women are catching up. Compared with women, online men are more likely to check the weather, get news, get do-it-yourself information, check for sports information, get political information, get financial information, do job-related research, download software, listen to music, rate a product/person/service through an online reputation system, download music files, use a web-cam, take a class.

Compared with men, online women are more likely to use e-mail, get maps and directions, look for health and medical information, use web sites to get support for health or personal problems, get religious information.

For many online activities, the growth rate for women's participation is greater than the growth rate for men's, including using government web sites, getting religious information, watching video clips or listening to audio clips, getting news, researching products.

More than men, women are enthusiastic online communicators, and they use e-mail in a more robust way. Women are more likely than men to use e-mail to write to friends and family about a variety of topics like sharing news and worries, planning events, forwarding jokes and funny stories. Women are more likely to feel satisfied with the role e-mail plays in their lives, especially when it comes to nurturing their relationships. And women include a wider range of topics and activities in their personal e-mails. Men use e-mail more than women to communicate with various kinds of organizations.

More online men than women perform online transactions. Men and women are equally likely to use the Internet to buy products and take part in online banking, but men are more likely to use the Internet to pay bills, participate in auctions, trade stocks and bonds, and pay for digital content.

Men are more avid consumers than women of online information. Men look for information on a wider variety of topics and issues than women do.

Men are more likely than women to use the Internet as a destination for recreation. Men are more likely to: gather material for their hobbies, read online for pleasure, take informal classes, participate in sports fantasy leagues, download music and videos, remix files, and listen to radio.

68 percent of men are responsible for home computer maintenance, compared with 45 percent of women. While 50 percent of men have changed the browser home-page on their computers, only 34 percent of women have done so.

Among people who are not currently Internet users, 58 percent of women say they don't need the Internet or want it, compared with 45 percent of men who say they don't need it and 43 percent of men who don't want it.

Deborah Fallows, senior research fellow, the Pew Internet Project (who authored the report), said, "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".

That said, men and women are more similar than different in their online lives, starting with their common appreciation of the Internet's strongest suit - efficiency. Both men and women approach with gusto, online transactions that simplify their lives by saving time on such mundane tasks as buying tickets or paying bills. Men and women also value the Internet for a second strength, as a gateway to limitless vaults of information. Men reach farther and wider for topics, from getting financial information to political news. Along the way, they work search engines more aggressively, using engines more often and with more confidence than women. Women are more likely to see the vast array of online information as a "glut" and to penetrate deeper into areas where they have the greatest interest, including health and religion. Women tend to treat information gathering online as a more textured and interactive process - one that includes gathering and exchanging information through support groups and personal email exchanges.

"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," said Fallows.