It is a common view that there is a complex and multifaceted relationship between gender and technology (Jansson et al., 2007). According to the studies which show the moderating effect of time between gender and technology, as the computers become more widely available and accessible in society and people become more familiar with computer technologies, the gendered effects of computer use can diminish (Selwyn, 2007).
Some people choose to stay as non-users in ICT (Faulkner&Lie, 2007). So it is also important to understand why some people prefer to use the Internet or IT technology as a daily life activity, and why others choose not to use it. This effort can also help to understand the use and adoption differences of information-based technologies, internet or ICTs. It could also be interesting to explore gender divisions among non-users. Indeed, a focus group study which is conducted with the
Internet nonusers shows that, women are more likely to believe that the Internet is complicated and hard to understand (Dittmar et al., 2004).
Venkatesh and Morris’ (2000) study was one of the first studies that focus on gender difference in IT adoption and usage in the workplace. The study of gender differences involved two competing theoretical approaches such as essentialists and social constructionists. When essentialists view gender-related attitude as something inside a person and consistent across situations and time, social constructionists regard attributes of gender as a product of social conventions and agreements. In their model, Venkatesh and Morris (2000) adopt the essentialist approach in explaining gender differences. The essentialist theories regard gender as an independent variable to explain the differences in the perceptions and behavior between men and women, and constructionists regard gender as the dependent variable and conceptualize that the perception and behavior of men and women often depend more on with whom they are interacting and their particular situation than on anything intrinsic about the gender they are (Cheung et al., 2002). The weakness of the essentialist approach is that it is predicated on some false stereotypes and unfounded assumptions of sex differences. The social constructionist view tends to reject such simplistic frames that essentialist scholarship provides. Instead, they view gender differences as an outcome of social processes and routines of meaning making.