Girls - better at using computers, a survey has found

Girls are better than boys at using a computer, a survey has found. Despite technology and gadgets traditionally being seen as boys' territory, the study found that girls are out-performing boys with their IT skills.

A higher percentage of girls aged over seven could carry out tasks such as finding what they needed on a search engine, creating and editing a word document and downloading photos.

They were also better at creating a social networking profile and manipulating photography. Although boys lagged behind girls, both sexes were found to be better than their parents on the computer, with children performing better than their adult counterparts.

More than half of parents said they relied on their children for advice on how to use their computer and the internet and only 40% of parents saw themselves as the most proficient computer user in their household.

Tesco Computers for Schools polled more than 1,000 parents in the UK with children aged seven to 16. It found that 73% of children use a computer every day, and 41% of them said they couldn't live without the internet.

At the age of seven nearly three quarters of children could use search engines and 62% could edit word documents, Tesco said.

By their teens, 70% of children could confidently create a social networking profile, 59% could download music and 71% were able to download photos.

[BBC News]