Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Gender differences arise in social media use

Whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Tumblr, there's bound to be some social networking platform where you belong and exist as an online entity. And that should be of no surprise -- anyone who's anyone (and even more-so those of less celebrity) is on the Internet. The more puzzling fact is the question of whether social networking world tailoring itself towards one gender or the other.

Anthony Carranza, of the Minneapolis Tech Culture Examiner, answers this question with a staggering "yes." And where do these people come from? Venus, of course. No, I'm not talking about aliens -- I'm talking about women.

The title of Carranza's article, "Gender differences arise in social media use" says it all. With the use of networking platforms only expanding since its advent in the early 2000s, researchers have been able to identify patterns of social media use between men and women.

"When it comes to using social media, women are just as willing to reveal personal information about their relationships, brand preferences, jobs, religious affiliations, and political ideology as men."

As a whole, women and men score similarly on the various questions regarding privacy in the realm of social media platforms like Facebook and Myspace. But where women truly take the heat (or in the case of my previous planetary metaphor, the cold) is in social media content.

On websites like Pinterest, over 97% of the users are women.

There's a lot to say about whether or not social media platforms tend to lean in favor of the female, if it does at all. Surely, the statistics don't lie -- and with women generally being more in-tune with their emotions and human relationships, it's only natural that they'd be more social media-savvy than men. As a female user myself, I can vouch for myself the affinity I have for social media platforms like Facebook and Pinterest. But does that mean that the Internet is more tailored to us, just because we show a greater number of use?

Decide for yourself. Check out http://www.examiner.com/tech-culture-in-minneapolis/gender-differences-arise-social-media-use?cid=PROG-ExaminerArticle-SocialMediaDL1-GenderDifferences for the full article.

3 comments:

  1. Gender differences in the choice of different social media platforms and different behaviors on those platforms are certainly of interest to academic researchers, along with other kinds of user behavior. I think you could probably say more about why those gender differences matter to digital journalists, however. Since this is a blog titled "Digital Journalism" users will expect content that is clearly related to our specific subject matter.

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  2. It's also a good practice to link to sources, such as the faculty page of the researcher.

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  3. Hello I am the original author of this post. I find the observations very much gender specific. Throughout the entire article I put together I suggested there were gender differences coming out in light of the Popularity of Pinterest. By no means was there a suggestion or even a definitive conclusion on whether that was beneficial of one gender over the other.
    You lack a lot of evidence in your claims and offer no counter argument. But before you actually categorize me as just as the "The Minneapolis Technology Examiner" I happen to hold the title of Examiner.com contributor. Currently a freelancer for CBS Local in Minnesota.
    Finally, it is very clear that the one who is scapegoating in this blog post is you. All of your arguments or criticism you suggested are a figment of your imagination. Have a nice day!

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