I think this finding makes a lot of sense. What do my girlfriends and I do when we get together? Talk. What does my husband do with his friends? Stuff — play volleyball or golf or tennis or poker. They never just sit and talk.

What is a social network great at … Just letting people talk.

I realize I’m oversimplifying gender differences, but I think there is something to this. The relationship-building role in American society is the province of women. Women by and large send out the Christmas cards or buy the gifts or call Aunt Bessie when she is sick,. regardless of which side of the family Aunt Bessie is on.

Social networks are all about building relationships and bridges. I’m not saying men can’t do that. Of course, they can, but it may be something about the chatting/relationship-buildlilng aspect of social networks that resonates more strongly with women than men. Other research on Twitter has found that men tend to broadcast on Twitter more than women, and women tend to chit-chat. Again, just like in the face-to-face world.

What I hope, though, is that news organizations will realize this and give more attention to wooing women readers in a way that makes sense to women.

Interesting stats, thank you. I’d like to find out why females use social media more than men. It’s easy to have preconceived ideas like Facebook and Twitter attracts more women because it’s more gossipy while Digg attract more men because it’s more geek-oriented. However, I’m sure these aren’t real reasons. I’d like to hear a social media demographics expert on this matter.

@Gina,

That was my read on things too. Women, in general, are more social than men. Naturally, it makes sense that women take to social media. I believe that news orgs could attract more female users if they made their products more social.

Part of the gap may also be attributed to less women working and more women raising children. These reasons have attributed to the rise of mommy bloggers. But I need to see more research before drawing that conclusion.

@Sylvain,

I’m going to try to do more research to find the reasons for this gap. Part of the gap with Facebook could be attributed to it being popular with college students (it originally was college only). Women out number men on college campuses, 58-42.

[...] use social media more than men – BeatBlogging Tweet This!Digg this!Share this on FacebookShare this on del.icio.usShare this on FriendFeedStumble [...]

[...] Patrick Thornton at BeatBlogging.Org, which tipped me off to the study, notes that it’s important to understand the demographics of each social network because “news organizations — especially newspapers — have struggled for years to attract as many female readers/users as they do with males.” You can say that again. [...]

[...] to a post on Beatblogging.org women use social media more then [...]

[...] to a post on Beatblogging.org women use social media more then [...]

Women are just more into seeing what others are doing. I like to see what is going on in others lives and my boyfriend could care less. I think the results of this study or not shocking they are predictable.

[...] etc. Tittar man på användande av sociala medietjänster så är det en liten men dock övervikt av kvinnor så varför ska det vara män som blir någon sorts bild av användaren? Det krävs en rejäl [...]

No surprise really to discover that women are the majority when it comes to social media sites. I have been tracking the statistics of my own fan pages on Facebook, I looked over the followers I have on Twitter, and even on LinkedIn. There are a lot of women in each of those places and the dominate the numbers. Think about it, have a look at the supermarket, the theater, even your places of worship. Women are the driving force in the conversations that are happening both online and offline.