Interviewing children requires certain sensitivity from the researcher, since there is a double power imbalance compared to interviewing adults. In all interview situations there is a power imbalance in that the interviewer sets the agenda and takes control and when interviewing children the power imbalance between adult and child also has to be taken into consideration. The atmosphere and setting are important factors for the outcome of the interviews; the amount of data as well as the validity (e.g. Thomas & O'Kane, 1998). Even if some children can use a range of strategies to withdraw (Enochsson & Löfdahl, 2003), it can be difficult for the researcher to tell when they are not comfortable with the situation. One way of making the withdrawal easier is to conduct online interviews using chat-tools, a medium many children are used to and feel comfortable with (Dunkels & Enochsson, 2007). Chatting online requires good writing skills, and not all children have this, which makes it interesting also to compare online and face-to-face interviews. This paper is based on experiences from two different research projects in which both online and face-to-face (f2f) interviews were used, and it discusses what different media can mean to the respondents. Interviews from two studies in school settings are used as data source. The interviewees were between 11 and 16 years old, and some of the interviewees could choose interview setting. Among those who could choose, the boys seemed to prefer f2f interviews and the girls online interviews. The analyses were made from transcripts of 11 online interviews and 13 face-to-face interviews. The flow of the dialogue and the amount of words used has been analysed. It could be seen that there was a difference in how much the interviewees expressed themselves. Overall, the answers were longer in f2f interviews, but in f2f interviews the boys had the longest answers, and in the online interviews the girls wrote the longest answers. A difference in the intensity of questions from the researcher could be noted.It has been documented that boys talk more than girls in the classroom (Öhrn, 2002). It can be seen in statistics that girls communicate more online than boys do (e.g. Larsson, 2005), even if there are different ways to look at this phenomena. It has also been found among Swedish online community users that girls write more and longer messages (Enochsson, submitted).Could it be that boys generally are more used to spoken language and feel more comfortable in an interview situation where they can express themselves orally? Could it be that girls are more used to being quiet and have adopted the possibility to express themselves in written text? Can we find ways of exploiting this? Dunkels, E., & Enochsson, A. (2007). Online Interviews: Addressing Some Methodological and Ethical Issues. In M. Quigley (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Information Ethics and Security. Hersley: Idea Group Reference. Enochsson, A. (submitted). Tweens on the Internet: Communication in Virtual Guest Books. Enochsson, A., & Löfdahl, A. (2003, 6-9 mars 2003). Incongruence in ethical and methodological issues in research concerning children's perspective. Paper presented at the NERA, København. Larsson, B. (2005). Arenor för alla - en studie om ungas kultur- och fritidsvanor (No. 2005:1). Stockholm. Thomas, N., & O'Kane, C. (1998). The ethics of participatory research with children. Children & Society, 12(5), 336-348. Öhrn, E. (2002). Könsmönster i förändring - en kunskapsöversikt om unga i skolan. Stockholm: Skolverket.European journal