Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:33:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081020/0154262583.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081020/0154262583.shtml showing that, on average, men tend to feel stronger connections with online communities. Of course, the report doesn't seem to explore why that is. It could potentially have something to do with the fact that early on, the internet really was male-dominated, and the community structures fit better with typical male interactions. It will be interesting to see if this remains the same, or if, over time, there are better forms of community that allow both men and women to feel equally strongly connected to their online communities.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> don't-make-me-leave-my-WoW-buddies http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081020/0154262583 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:58:23 PST Dennis Yang http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080218/235551288.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080218/235551288.shtml going on for years now, fueled mainly by complaints that the video game industry continues to make games that primarily appeal to males. Perhaps it's not the fault of the video game industry, but a result of a psychological tendency. A new study reports that men's brains are more responsive to video games than women's. According to MRI scans, the zones of the brain associated with reward and addiction are much more active in men's brains when they played a simple video game. Last year, there was an effort to get the American Medical Association to classify video game addiction as an official disorder -- perhaps these folks now have some more empirical evidence to support that claim.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> boys-and-girls http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080218/235551288 Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:44:00 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080129/144206114.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080129/144206114.shtml guys are much more likely than women to overestimate how secure their computers really are. The truth, however, is that both men and women are usually equally vulnerable. Of course, the study was paid for by a security company, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt. For example, while it talks about vulnerabilities, it doesn't seem to say who is actually getting infected with malware more often.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> the-internet-is-no-place-to-pretend http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080129/144206114