Thanks to an online onslaught by teen-agers there are now more women than men on the World Wide Web.

For the first time, more women use the Internet than men, and they will continue to flock to the Net in record numbers for years to come, according to a new study. Some 50.4 percent of Web users in the first quarter of 2000 were women, a 5 percent jump from 1999, according to the Media Metrix survey. The number of women on the Internet has grown steadily since 1996, when they represented slightly less than 40 percent of Web users, said Anne Rickert, a Media Metrix analyst. "This is not a one year anomaly. This is a head's up, women have a very distinct presence on line. This is where they are going," she said. Rickert said the most surprising finding is perhaps the more than doubling of Web usage by teen-agers. Some 125 percent more girls aged 12 to 17 were on the Web in the first quarter of 2000 than in 1999, the survey found. Web sites like cosmogirl.com, teenpeople.com and delias.com, the top three destinations for the age group, are "providing a platform for teen-aged girls," she said.