Men are less bothered about receiving spam emails than women, according to a new study.

Women are more bothered than men by everything about spam, with more than four-fifths (83 per cent) of women saying they are bothered by offensive or obscene content of unsolicited emails.

The research from US research company Pew Internet, also reveals that web users send less emails than before because of the increase of junk messages.

A quarter of email users claim they use email less, while 70 per cent of email users say spam has made their time online unpleasant or annoying. Just over a half (52 per cent) say spam has made them less trusting of email in general.

However, the report shows that young people (those aged between 18 and 29 years old) are tolerant of spam. Around a third of that age group say spam is "just part of life on the internet" compared to 18 per cent of older people.

Recent research revealed that 65 per cent of consumers delete spam without reading it, with spam promoting medical treatments accounting for more than 10 per cent of junk email.

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