STUDY CALLS E-MAIL THE `ISOLATION ANTIDOTE'
   The Philadelphia Inquirer
   May 15, 2000

   Nine million adult women went on-line for the first time in the last
   six months in the United States, bringing "gender parity" to the once
   male-dominated Internet, according to a wide-ranging study released
   this month.

   The study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project also found that
   the Internet is enhancing social interactions, contrary to results of
   a February study by Stanford University, which said too much Internet
   use turned some individuals into recluses.

   "E-mail use has improved communication," said Lee Rainie, the study's
   director. Instead of fostering isolation, he said, "it's being used to
   enrich and deepen" people's lives and relationships.

   Rainie's study said longtime and heavy Internet users--those on-line
   more than two hours a day--were just as likely as anyone else to have
   visited or phoned a friend or family member in the day prior to being
   polled for the study.

   The study called e-mail the "isolation antidote."

   The Pew study was based on random March telephone interviews with
   3,533 adults, of whom 1,690 were Internet users. The margin of error
   for results from the Internet users was plus or minus 3 percent.

   The total number of Internet users in the United States grew to 90
   million during the last six months, with the addition of 9 million
   women and 6.5 million men, according to the study.

   Though women still do not go on-line as often as men, they are more
   likely to use e-mail for staying in touch with family and friends and
   for enhancing their deepest relationships, the study said.

   Women are also more likely to seek health and religious information,
   look for jobs and play games on-line, it said. Men are more likely to
   go on-line for news, stock quotes, sports and product information.

   The study found that among Internet users, 71 percent of women,
   compared with 61 percent of men, said e-mail improved their
   connections with close friends. More women than men said they
   communicated more with friends and family since adopting e-mail.

   "My husband tried to tell me how neat it was to communicate [via
   e-mail] with neighbors," wrote Susan Davis, an anthropologist from
   Haverford, Pa., in an e-mail Wednesday from a cybercafe in Marrakech,
   Morocco, where she is leading a study trip. "But I wasn't convinced
   until I got immediate replies to e-mail from friends in Cairo and
   Kyrgyzstan." That was six years ago, and Davis, who is in her 50s,
   said she has been hooked on e-mail ever since.

   "Women, even the newcomers, are pretty quick to embrace e-mail and to
   use it in this connections way and to feel good about that," Rainie
   said.

   The study, which was funded by a $5.9 million grant from the Pew
   Charitable Trusts, found that 55 million Americans--60 percent of
   those with Internet access--use the Internet daily at work, at home or
   both.


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