Study finds men less likely than women to embrace social media
A study into the composition of social networking sites has found that 58% of users are women – prompting a push by networking sites to bring more men into the fold.
The sex gap was highlighted by Rutgers University which has found that despite the numbers of people signing up to services such as Twitter and Facebook ballooning, the overall proportion of males online is declining.
They show that the volume of users boasted by the two social media giants doubled to 850m between 2008 and 2010, a period which coincided with a 3% drop in the proportion of signed up men.
This has seen the launch of a number of male oriented sites such as Jaxx, which focuses on discussion of shared interests such as sports results rather than feelings and the invitation only Gentlemint – a site geared toward discussion of ‘manly’ things such as fajitas, beer and cars.
Explaining the figures Keith Hampton, lead author of the report, noted that men were inherently less likely to interact online whilst “women historically are the networkers in relationships.”
He added: “Larger social forces that have nothing to do with the site's interface explain better why men are less engaged on social media.”
What do you think? Do you agree with the results of the study?