monitor 4_97

Evan Mahaney’s
Leprechaun Talk
,,No way, Sis. Other
surveys show that by
2000 there will be 80
million users of the
Internet and women
will only account for 20
percent. That’s what
you bimbos are always
doing — exaggerating.“
Even before I got to my computer, I could hear
the Leprechauns arguing. It dawned on me that
the old saying, ,,fighting like cats and dogs“ fit
them perfectly. I was afraid it would get bloody
before I got there to calm them down.
It was a male/female battle. They were
fighting over women on the Internet. The female
Leprechauns gathered around the middle of the
keyboard and the males were all huffing and puffing
over near the number pad. Not a single male
had the courage to venture to the center of the
keyboard and go jaw to jaw with Ms. Thunder or
Ms. Lockjaw - two of my favorite female Leprechauns.
I moved into the fray with great caution.
,,Please,“ I pleaded, ,,settle down now. Take some
deep breaths and bring me up to speed.“
Ms. Lockjaw explained the situation. It seems
that the women think that all men believe the old
saw that women should be ,,barefoot and
pregnant in the kitchen.“ Ms. Lockjaw said that
,,Mr. Curmudgeon had just used that phrase.“
I asked Mr. Curmudgeon if this was true.
,,Well, it was said in a moment of stress,“ he confirmed.
He then gestured toward the women Leprechauns
and said, ,,They are trying to take over
the Internet. They’ll ruin it. Make it all squeakyclean
and nice and soft. The Internet won’t be fun
anymore if they keep going like they are.“
The women started to charge the number pad,
but I interceded, using a file folder to dissect the
keyboard. Faced with this barrier between the
warring factions, both sides cooled down a little
and I was finally able to get some answers as to
why this little war had broken out.
The female Leprechauns had been taunting
the male Leprechauns with just-released figures
from a new survey taken by Forrester Research,
Inc. Forrester’s information was a little earth-shaking
for the men. For one thing, female Internet
activity shows the usage of E-mail at 71 percent
versus ,,shopping“ at only 10 percent. In looking
at news and information 60 percent of the women
do this, about the same percentage as men.
According to Forrester, by the year 2000 the
number of women on the net will have grown to
23 million. Ms. Thunder, who is (for a Leprechaun)
tall, large and imposing without being
overweight, informed me loudly that ,,at a 27
percent per year growth rate, women will exceed
men within the next three years.“ That observation
set off Mr. Curmudgeon on the other side of
the file folder.
He replied, ,,No way, Sis. Other surveys show
that by 2000 there will be 80 million users of the
Internet and women will only account for 20
percent. That’s what you bimbos are always doing
— exaggerating.“ Then he added a little comment
that started Ms. Thunder on a trip around
the file folder. He said, ,,Computing is man’s
work.“
I caught her before she invaded the men’s
group, most of whom were a little cowed at the
tenor of this fight. I used my nail file to serve as
a restraining fence. Ms. Thunder was ready to become
Ms. Mankiller at Mr. Curmudgeon’s expense.
� How many are there?
The argument over ,,how many users are there?“
- has been going on ever since the first few statistics
about the Internet were developed. The first
projections were done by people who loved the
Internet. Their reports reflected pure hype and
exaggeration. One pollster, whose URL address
now shows an error message, pegged the number
of Internet users at over 100 million.
Most serious studies of the Internet have refused
to state an estimate of how many people use
the net. They use an interview process which
shows how various cyberheads use the Internet
rather than how many users there are.
A few groups, like the Graphic, Visualization,
& Usability Center’s (GVU) 5th WWW User
Survey are bold enough to estimate only 20 to 35
million users. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user
_surveys/survey-04-1996/ The latest GVU-
WWW survey was conducted from April 10 to
70 monitor 4/97