My friends are split about 60% female and about 40% male, and my male friends (along with me) rarely do anything on Facebook. Posts will have about 90% “likes” by other females, sometimes 100%!
So, I conclude that if it weren’t for females there would be no Facebook.
Anyone else notice this disparity?
Whenever I hear about facebook my first reaction is bewilderment that anyone still uses it. I still have my account but it’s basically like a phone book now. How often does that get taken out?
More than gender it seems really unusual for anyone under 50 / 60 to be using Facebook anymore. Whenever I do check it, all the recent posts are by the relatively few middle aged Facebook friends I have. But now that you mention it, they’re almost all middle aged women.
Wow, this really surprises me. I’m an old fart, (nearing retirement) and a proud Luddite. So I don’t use Facebook…but I thought that everybody else on the planet does.
What are people using instead? Whenver I hear the phrase “social media”, I assume that means Facebook.
(Plus a few, less important media, like Twitter, tumblr and pinterest…But I’ve never been able to understand how those work as “social” media–they seem more like “personal” media, since they don’t allow for conversations. They seem very one-way streets–post a tweet or a picture, and hope the right people see it…Like in 1999 having a personal homepage on Yahoo Geocities. At least on Facebook there is something like real socializing, with conversation and feedback.)
I’m a younger person (30 years old) who uses Facebook a lot, and so do many of my friends, most of whom are my age or younger. I haven’t noticed any big gender divide among my Facebook friends.
Same here. I’m late 30s, but there’s tons of people in at least the 30-40 age rage that use Facebook, and I personally don’t notice any gender disparity. I have a few older people on Facebook, but they don’t seem to use it a lot. Let me just see what posts in the last hour I have on the news feed. goes to check Looks like 7 male and 4 female.
Your sample isn’t reliable. Facebook is still massively popular and there are plenty of men posting on it. It’s mostly adults though, not teenagers.
I believe smart phones are so ingrained in young people’s upbringing that they just think about it differently. Yes, some of them love Twitter and some love Tumblr. They probably all use them on their iPhones too.
But they also use snapchat and group text messages and Facebook’s Messenger app and Facebook’s What’s App messenger app. To me, that’s not social media at all. It’s just chatting. It’s the modern version of IRC or ICQ or even Aol IM. But I bet if you asked a bunch of youths what they’re into now, that’s what they’d insist on.
Most of my friends and family in their late 40-70s use Facebook. It helps us keep up with each other’s lives more frequently.
Looking at this report in 2012-2013, Facebook does skew female. 72% of female internet users use Facebook, while 62% of male internet users do so. And I do remember reading somewhere that women do make substantially more status updates than men, but I can’t find that site.
I have definitely noticed a gender disparity in status updates. I’m in my mid-30s so most of my friends have young children. Women are far more prone to post photos and status updates about their kids on a regular basis.
I agree with **SaharaTea **that it depends on the status update. I have a group of friends with whom I discuss current events/politics, and it’s about 50/50 M/F. Sometimes “like” isn’t an appropriate response, though.
Kid and recipe posts tend to be from other women. I “like” these as shorthand for “I saw it and am glad this makes you happy”, basically. Pet posts tend with my friends to have a 50/50 split.
My parents are on FB, but one uses it to share whacky right-wing nutjob memes and put weird stuff on my wall (bless her heart, she hasn’t figured out the difference between a MESSAGE and the WALL), and I think the other uses it to make sure I’m not dead.
Depends on what “using facebook” means. I never post any updates but i use it daily to chat with people.
I’ll note that a lot of “kid” posts on Facebook are more about an easy way to share photos with the extended family than a burning desire to post thousands of baby pictures. I know my friends could do with a minimum of kid pics, but my whole family is on Facebook and it makes them SO HAPPY to see baby pictures that I tend to post them anyway. And a lot of “keeping the extended family happy” duties tend to fall on women.
66 here, I never thought I would ever use facebook but I find myself a regular. I think reconnecting with old friends has been the main reason I go on. I also like it because it steers me toward a lot of web sites I may not have looked at otherwise. ( as if I don’t spend too much time allready surfing the web)
Mine run about 50/50 and there are plenty of younger people posting. Maybe it’s a matter of who your friends are.
When it comes to sports, the men in particular go nuts.
Honestly, every one of these types of Facebook questions can be answered with “Depends on who your friends are.”
For instance I almost never see kid photos, cause most of the people I know don’t have young kids. I *never *see recipes, or right-wing nuts or religious glurge, cause my friends are not those types of people. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed a gender disparity.
Most of my students and graduates use Facebook. They prefer Pinterest, but sometimes like you need words and stuff.
I have 1 FB page with 200k likes. They are mostly 22-30 F in the US. On average 150k are active on any given day. I have other pages that are almost all M. Most are aimed at a demo somewhere in the 18-44 age range. Personally, I don’t really use FB. Most posts I see are from attention seeking Fs, and a lot of likes from desperate Ms.
Most of my friends are male but that’s mostly because I use it to play games more than anything. Most of my female friends post family updates & jokes. I kicked off about 6 who’d almost exclusively post glurge even after a couple warnings.
I have over 300 friends, just for game gifts. I just hide their posts/updates & accept their gifts in-game.
I used to use FB just to keep in contact with several long distance friends & family, since we move a lot. I just have FB set up to show their updates only.
I’m 38, male, and I’m a heavy user of FB. I wouldn’t be if tons of my 25 - 50 y-o buddies weren’t there also, most of them male. It’s our go-to place for daily news, deals, music, humour, science links, hobbies, kitty videos and such. If anything, I’ve noticed many specific-theme messageboards drying up, with all the action relocating in Facebook groups etc. It’s the best place there is to post and view videos, photos and commentary of interesting stuff, almost in real time.