Online images amplify gender bias. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38355800/)

These scientists wanted to understand how the pictures we see online can affect the way we think about different jobs and people. They noticed that more and more people are looking at images on the internet instead of reading words. They looked at millions of pictures from places like Google, Wikipedia, and Internet Movie Database to see if there was any gender bias, which means showing more men or women in certain roles.

They found that the gender bias in pictures is even stronger than in words. This means that certain jobs or roles are more often shown with men or women, which can influence how we think about those roles. They also discovered that women are not represented as much in images compared to men, which is a problem.

To test how this affects people's beliefs, they asked some people to search for images of jobs, like a nurse or a banker, and others to read descriptions of those jobs. They found that looking at pictures instead of reading about the jobs made people more likely to have gender biases in their beliefs.

Overall, the scientists want to make sure that the internet is fair and inclusive for everyone, and they think it's important to pay attention to the images we see online to create a better future.

Guilbeault D., Delecourt S., Hull T., Desikan BS., Chu M., Nadler E. Online images amplify gender bias. Nature. 2024 Feb 14. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07068-x.