Some results of the study? Men visit more sites and stay online longer, use social networks as much or more than women and are more likely to access the Internet from a mobile device.

• eMarketer estimates there are 95.9 million males online in 2009, or 48.2% of the Internet population, compared with 103.2 million females.
• Although the US Internet population will continue to grow, by 2013 males will make up just 47.9% of the online population, and at 105.9 million users will still be the minority.

Men spent, on average, 4.4 hours longer online than women. They are also overall less likely to be 'put off' by something they find online, and are more tolerant of advertising and branding than women. Finally, fewer men in the study said they have 'never' been online, only 15% of males compared to 20% of females.

The report covers a lot more information in-depth, but the summary already hints at key differences between how men and women approach Internet use and how long they are willing to remain engaged before choosing a different activity.

Although we had a hard time swallowing that men are an overlooked minority of Internet users, upon further reflection it does seem like a lot of marketing analysis goes toward finding the motivations of other online groups. Even in our coverage at ReadWriteWeb, we have talked about women and multitasking, and how age plays a role in Internet use, but not much specifically about men.

Well.. OK, that's not entirely true. We did cover this study by browser maker Opera last year. But it looks like the results of that study just serve to reinforce the findings of the eMarketer report.

Even more interesting is that the simultaneous media usage for men decreases the older they get, but for women it's the opposite. Up until the age of 40, it's the women who are the better multi-taskers. Amanda Welsh, head of research for IMMI, thought the trend was surprising, given the amount of sports-related programming on the web. What does this mean? She says that they're interpreting the data to mean that "women are more inclined to multi-task than men."

What About the Digital Natives?

Arguing against hard data is difficult, but we have to agree with Amanda - this information is surprising. It seems to support the age-old theory that women, because of their "natural" abilities as mothers and in running the household, have some sort of innate multi-tasking abilities that allow them to engage in different activities at the same time more often (and the subtext implies "better") than men.

But is that still accurate? We're not entirely sure. The ability to take part in different activities when surfing the web is something today's teens and young adults, aka the "millennials'" or "Generation Y," also reportedly do well. Because this generation grew up with the internet a part of their world from the day they arrived, multi-tasking while online just became a normal part of their existence - for both boys and girls. Surfing the net while instant messaging, listening to music, and/or watching TV, is something that this younger generation of internet users are known for. And since these millennials are a part of the age range (15-48) involved in this study, you would think their learned multi-tasking behavior would have some impact on the reported results. But Instead, the results seem to uphold the more traditional view about women and their multi-tasking abilities.

Then Again, Multi-tasking Could Be a Myth

This idea of multi-tasking being a skill to boast about is left over from the days when technology like desktop PCs and email systems were being integrated into the workplace. Suddenly, HR managers were looking for "multi-taskers" able to focus on several different aspects of the job at the same time. However, in later years, it's been discovered that multi-tasking is more myth than reality, since the human brain can only really focus on one thing at a time, no matter how many activities a person is engaged in. The new advice for increased productivity is to slack off, work simpler, and ditch multi-tasking altogether.

So perhaps women sit in the living room with notebook PCs on their lap more often than men, but let's be honest - they aren't multi-tasking. They're just tuning out the TV to engage in something more interesting instead; the internet.