Adolescent gender differences in time alone and time devoted to conversation

On the basis of past theory and research, it is hypothesized that adolescent females will spend more time in conversation and less time alone than their male counterparts. The hypotheses are tested in data from 2,004 seventh and ninth grade students in a southeastern metropolitan area. With a number of potentially relevant variables taken into account, self-reports of average number of hours per week spent alone and spent in conversation are both substantially higher among girls than among boys contradicting the time alone hypothesis but supporting the conversation time hypothesis and the generalizability of an earlier finding of an adolescent gender difference in time spent in conversation. The findings are tentatively interpreted in terms of males' orientation toward sports, encouraging nonconversation time with others, and females' orientation toward close interpersonal relationships, encouraging talk with intimates. In additional nonhypothesized findings, black students report significantly more conversation time and time alone than do white students.