African women are surfing the net as much as men according to an Opera backed study

African women are a happier lot and more economically empowered thanks to technology.

According to a study undertaken by global software company Opera and digital reading non-profit Worldreader, it found out that women in Africa use mobile internet to empower and entertain themselves.

The survey sampled 1,500 women and men aged 14 to 44 in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa in May 2017 to learn more about their web browsing habits on their mobile phones.

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The poll results were later combined with Worldreader insights on the mobile reading habits of 50,000 Worldreader app users in the three countries above.

The combined study revealed that women in these three African countries are as tech savvy as men, when it comes to browsing the internet using their cell phones.

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Women were using their browsers as often as men, with the majority of female survey respondents in Kenya and Nigeria (60%) stating that they access their mobile browsers more than eight times a day for various online activities.

As a result , they tended to purchase bigger data packages than men, over KSHS 1,000 (9.62 USD) in Kenya for instance.

Popular topics women found engaging online were lifestyle, music and entertainment content on Opera and by reading romance, thrillers and other fiction e-books on Worldreader (in some cases up to 10 times as many as men).

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Entertainment alone however was not the only thing women engaged with online. According to Opera, women were more engaged than men with content that could improve their lives, including content related to education, economy, property rights, public services, and health.