WHO’S MORE ACTIVE ON THE INTERNET?

Here’s a quick question: if you are socially active online, is it mainly women or men that you see update their status 24/7?

There are many factors that need to be considered when thinking about these questions. For example, are the majority of your Facebook friends male or female? And if you are socially active yourself?

I made a status on Facebook and asked “ARE WOMEN MORE ACTIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA THAN MEN?” Funnily enough, mainly women responded with a “Yes” on my status on my Facebook page, and men just liked, or reacting to the post. So, why is that?

In general, women like to share things in person and online. Since checking and updating social media became a daily routine for most people, women may feel obliged to update their friends and connections on their day and their feelings. Facebook requires users to “Update Status”, “Post a photo”, “Post a video”, “Go Live” and saying how you feel with a selection of different types of emotions can portray women being more socially active online.

When I studied A Level English Literature and Language, I came across a study that is relevant to this topic. Robin Lakoff’s gender language theory. From my interpretation, you will find that during a conversation women tend to be the ones to ask the questions to get the conversation flowing and to also show concern towards the other person.

Women have conversations to interact with people and hope to create a bond with the other person. They would ask things like “how are you”, “how has your day been”, “how is your brother, is he okay”, “you look different! did you get a new haircut?” Women have a more observant nature than men and like to be expressive about it. On social media, you can rely on women to react, comment, or interact with you online. Or you will find that women will talk about their day, in hope to get a reaction from someone else.

As an example of that, women would use social media to rant or to vent out their emotions. But due to this, it can lead to several problems. The readers can easily assume that the status that they see has a direct audience, where it might not be the case.

On the other hand, men would not share personal content online. Men would feel that by sharing their personal problems on an online public platform will show a sign of weakness. Even in person, men tend to not talk about their feelings or emotions in a one-to-one interaction. The majority of the male population would find it easier to keep quiet rather than rely on the social media as a source to express. The man’s persona is to be strong and ‘within himself’ and to not be reliant on others. This persona is also reflected on social media with men’s lack of update on their online profiles.

Although, the social media platforms may vary. For example, males use social media where a status update is not required. For instance, Snapchat or Instagram. Those social media platforms only require elements of photography as ‘Snapchat is an image messaging and multimedia app‘. Whilst Instagram serves the purpose to share photos and videos online. These apps are both similar in a way that they do not particularly need a caption to express.

In conclusion, men and women can be easily recognised as both equally active on social media. But that would depend on the social media platform. Facebook has the opportunity to update a status in an unlimited word count. Whereas Snapchat has a character limit of 160. So Facebook can be used to express as much as they want, whereas Snapchat has its limits.