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In 2002, we found gender differences in the use of the Internet. Since then, however, the Internet has changed considerably. We therefore conducted a follow-up study in 2012. The study involved 501 students (389 females and 100 males, 12 participants unspecified gender) and we measured Internet use, Internet anxiety, and Internet identification. We found that males had a greater breadth of Internet use; they used the Internet more for games and entertainment than females. The differentiation between males and females in terms of Internet use is evident, and in some ways is even more distinct than 10 years ago. In our previous research we had found no gender differences in the use of the Internet for communication, whereas in the current study we have found that females use the Internet for communication than males and were using social network sites more than males. We also found, consistent with our previous study, that Internet identification and Internet anxiety were related to Internet use.

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Social networking sites (SNS), and especially Facebook, have revolutionised patterns of language and communication. We conducted a study to examine gender differences in language use on Facebook, by surveying 600 undergraduate students (388 females and 207 males), and analysing males' and females' responses to two Facebook status updates. There were a number of gender differences in terms of public replies to Facebook status updates.Females were significantly more likely to 'like' a Facebook status update than males, post a public reply to a Facebook status update than males and show higher levels of emotional support than males. In contrast there were hardly any gender differences in terms of sending private messages in response to Facebook status updates. There was no gender difference in terms of level of emotional support in private messages. Females were more likely to send a private message than males, but this difference was very small. The implications of these findings for explanations of gender differences in language are discussed.

This paper discusses findings from an extensive project examining gender, language and computer‐mediated communication (CMC) in the context of undergraduate psychology courses. The contributions of 197 introductory psychology students (148 females, 49 males) participating in asynchronous CMC as part of their course were collated and coded for their language content using a qualitative content analysis procedure in Atlas.ti 4.2. Nearly 700 postings were characterised according to gender on the basis of seven categories relating to language and communication style – attenuated, authoritative, traditional male and female language features, mixed language, positive socioemotional and negative socioemotional. Gender interactions were analysed in terms of positive and negative socioemotional content, focusing on explicit markers of agreement and disagreement. Gender‐related patterns in language use and interaction style were found. Females were more likely than males to make attenuated contributions and express agreement, whereas males were more likely than females to make authoritative contributions and express disagreement. These results are discussed in terms of the implications for the increasing use of CMC in education.