Gender vs Social Media

Background

Prior to gathing data, I wanted to find information on other studies on the number of hours each gender uses social media. According to many different studies, women seem to spend more time on social media than men. In North America and Europe, women spent an average of nearly two hours (30 percent) more than men on social networking sites in October 2011. Latin America saw both females and males average the most hours on social networking sites globally, with females averaging 8.2 hours social networking in October 2011 and males averaging 6.9 hours (1). Another study came to the same conclusion and found that women, globally, spend more time online than men, 24.8 hours a month for women, as compared to 22.9 hours for men (2). In a more recent study on teens and social media, 23% of males and 16% of females report they do not have an online profile. Of the 77% of males with an online profile, 51% have made it private. While, of the 84% of females with an online profile, 66% have made it private. Also found in the study, 32% of males and 27 % of females report using the Internet less than one hour per week. Forty-two percent 42% of males and 46% of females report using the Internet two or more hours per week (3). Not only do women spend more time on social media, more women are using social networking, Facebook in particular verus their male counterparts were. In 2010, the estimates for membership on Facebook were 57% female, and 43% male. By the end of 2013, those numbers were even more skewed, according to Pew, with 72% of female Internet users utilizing Facebook, compared to just 62% of male Internet users (4). The number of males and females also depends on what social media site they are using. For instance, women do the bulk of Facebook sharing, 62 percent, while more men are on LinkedIn than women, 54 percent. Men also spend more time on YouTube each week than women. Twitter appears to be dominated by women, 62 percent, and, not surprisingly, Pinterest, 70 percent. Overall, though, a higher percentage of women, 71 percent, use social media than men, 62 percent (5).

1. http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2011/12/women-spend-more-time-social-networking-than-men-worldwide/

2. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-digital-gender-divide-women-are-more-likely-than-men-to-have-a-blog-and-a-facebook-profile/256466/

3. http://fyi.uwex.edu/swys/files/2010/12/Chapter-10-Teens-andTechnology-revised-final.pretty.pdf

4. http://socialmediatoday.com/valerie-mellema/2231276/ do-men-use-facebook-differently-women

5. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226599