N Y Times, September 26, 2010
The Sexes and the Media They Focus On
In the latest survey of multitasking, a startling disparity between the sexes arose. Young women are more than twice as likely as young men to report that they give a magazine their undivided attention “on an average day.” The situation is the opposite for television. About 57 percent of adult men report watching without distractions on an average day, but only 42 percent of women do.
The magazine numbers did not solely reflect differences in the way men and women read magazines. They may also reflect higher overall rates of magazine-reading among women, and gender-neutral facts about the way magazines’ readers engage with them. “My guess is that magazines are a harder thing to multitask with,” said Anne Marie Kelly, an executive at GfK MRI. “They’re what they call ‘lean forward’ media — you’re deeply involved in it.”