Girls Are Not Into BitTorrent

The Cybernorms research group at Sweden’s Lund University partnered with The Pirate Bay earlier this year to carry out the largest survey among file-sharers in history. 75,000 people from all over the world participated in the study, and today the researchers revealed some of the initial results. Girls don’t fancy The Pirate Bay, most pirates download movies, and they are increasingly worried about their anonymity.

In April, The Pirate Bay renamed itself to The Research Bay to conduct the largest ever survey among file-sharers together with the Cybernorms research group at Lund University.

The Cybernorms group researches how the Internet creates new social norms in society, and to what extent these norms are or should be reflected in relevant legislation. Ultimately, the researchers hope the collated knowledge and insights will help legislators to draft more sensible laws.
The Pirate Bay supported survey was a great success and in just a few days 75,000 people responded. Although the final results wont be made public before November, the researchers are already teasing some key figures.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the researchers find that only 5 percent of the respondents are female. Although it could just mean that girls/women are less likely to fill in surveys on their file-sharing habits, the result certainly suggests that BitTorrent is still very much a boys/men thing.
If we look at some other data sources, such as Google’s site profiles, females are indeed underrepresented. Although the percentages are higher than in the survey, most popular torrent sites get approximately 20 percent female visitors. BTJunkie is the most appealing to girls with 26 percent.

Going back to the survey results, the researchers report that the majority of the respondents are young men between the ages of 18 and 24. Within this group the download habits don’t vary much between cultures. Whether they come from India, Africa, the United States or Europe, when it comes to file-sharing they are very much alike.

Perhaps more surprisingly, there’s no difference between men and women when it comes to the content they download. Both men and women download the same amount of porn, and the same is true for sports. The only gender difference comes from games, which 60 percent of men download compared to 25 percent of the women.

Content-wise, movies are by far the most sought after. More than 80 percent of all respondents say they’ve downloaded movies. This is more than twice as much as the people who’re interested in music.

According to the researchers it wont be easy to stop people from sharing files. Aside from seeking more ways to download torrents anonymously, the respondents are also increasingly seeking alternative sharing options, such as swapping USB-sticks and sharing files directly with friends via mobile phones.
In the coming weeks the researchers will delve deeper into the data and the full results are expected to be released in November. Aside from the lack of girls, some interesting patterns should emerge from the file-sharers’ brains.