Kids on the Net

Kids on the Net — Benoit Deshaies <[email protected]> took slight exception with some of our comments about chat rooms and IRC:

First of all, I’m 16 years old – soon to be 17 – and I’ve been using the Internet since 1991. I’d like to make a comment about your article’s claim that most people using chat on the Internet are teenage boys or men. Perhaps this is true for the U.S. The only international channel I frequent on IRC is #c++, a technical channel, which is an estimated 98 percent male. On the other hand, the main local channel I visit (#trois-rivieres, which is the channel of my town, located in Quebec, Canada) is about 30 to 40 percent female. We verified this at our Get Togethers, which are real-world meetings of the people on IRC. The percentages are similar for other Quebecois channels I’ve visited.