In India, only 33 per cent of women and 57 per cent of men have ever used the internet, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), which was carried out by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. In rural areas, where only 25 per cent of women have used the internet compared to 49 per cent of men, the digital divide is more prominent. Even with India's rapid advancements in internet access, particularly through mobile internet use, which has nearly doubled between 2018 and 2020, the digital divide between men and women in the country still exists.
For women and girls, the digital divide creates obstacles to social interaction, education, financial inclusion, and information access. To guarantee equal opportunities for women and girls in India, it is critical to address this issue completely.
In January 2023, a Statista survey found that 51 per cent of Snapchat's global audience was female, the highest percentage of female audiences across all the social media platforms that were considered. In contrast, 48.2 per cent of Instagram users are female.
90 per cent of 3,734 respondents identified as male, 8.8 per cent as female, and 1 per cent as other in a 2018 survey covering 12 language versions of Wikipedia and a few other Wikimedia Foundation projects whereas among contributors to the English Wikipedia, 84.7 per cent identified as male, 13.6 per cent as female, and 1.7 per cent as other. A 2021 study revealed that women make up 41 per cent of deleted biographies, despite only 17 per cent of published biographies, and their visibility on Wikipedia is limited.
