Teenage Girls Cyberpioneers

Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are teenage girls - the cyberpioneers of the moment.

Teenage bloggers nearly doubled from 2004 to 2006, almost all the growth was because of “the increased activity of girls,” according to the Pew report.

A study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35% of girls compared with 20% of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32% of girls compared with 22% of boys).

Girls also eclipse boys when it comes to building or working on Web sites for other people and creating profiles on social networking sites (70% of girls 15 to 17 have one, versus 57% of boys 15 to 17).

Video posting was the sole area in which the boys gained an edge - boys are almost twice as likely as girls to post video files.

But even though girls surpass boys as Web content creators, the imbalance among adults in the computer industry remains. Women only hold about 27% of jobs in computer and mathematical occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.