Ever curious about the demographics of Facebook? Who's using it and who isn't? Facebook is the fastest growing social networking site to this day, and I, along with the majority of people, have no idea the statistics involved.
According to the article, "Got Facebook? Investigating What's Social About Social Media," it was reported that, "compared to females, males are more likely to list their political and religious views" on their 'about me' section of their profile. Surprisingly enough, there are more female users of Facebook than there are of males, as can be seen in both current college students and college graduates.
So, I must pose a question - why might this be? Why do you think that males are more apt to disclose more personal, controversial information about themselves?
As a Facebook user myself, I must admit that I do disclose most of my personal information, regarding religious and political views, so I fall into the percentage of women that do share that information, so I couldn't really give you a rough idea of why more men than women do.
But, feminism might have that answer that I fail to supply you with.
According to feminism, patriarchy may have a huge impact on most of what's being posted on Facebook. Patriarchy, as defined on Wikipedia, is "a social system in which the role of the males as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and is dependent on female subordination."
So, therefore, coming from a radical feminist perspective, one might assume that men feel a certain entitlement when it comes to sharing more personal, political, and controversial information with the world of Facebook.
I am in no way claiming this is the sole reason for the unbalanced gender representation of information posted to Facebook. This is just an idea, a theory, if you will. Or maybe just some food for thought.
Why not Facebook....it is true nearly everywhere else!
ReplyDeleteTyler, I completely agree. Thank you for reading and commenting. :)
ReplyDeleteOne thing that irked me about this article was no info given re per cent of college students who use Facebook, nor how that got their 900 person sample.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that interested me about the article was reported differences by race (many don't report). I noticed that Blacks and “Other” most likely to have ever engaged in civic or political activities within social network sites. I was also intrigued by the report that Blacks are more likely than other ethnic groups to rely on blogs as their main source for daily news.