The "Why" Behind Women's Social Media Habits

In today’s world, everyone is on social media. But did you know that women use social media more than men? In January 2022, Statista found that there is a gender discrepancy on social media. On more social sharing platforms, like Snapchat and Instagram, women were the predominant users. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are where male users triumphed. Why is that the case?

According to data compiled by FinancesOnline.com, women tend to use social networking sites to make connections and stay in touch with family or friends. Men, on the other hand, use social media to research, gather relevant contacts, and increase their status. Not to mention other key discoveries are as follows:

• Women use social media more often daily: 30% of online U.S. women check their social sites several times in a day versus 26% of online U.S. men

• Women interact with brands more often: 55% of online U.S. women access deals compared to just 36% of online U.S. men

• 58% of those who consume news in social media are women

• More women use smartphones and tablets to access social media

• Women drive the trend towards visually oriented social sites such as Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest, which are the three fastest-growing social media networks today

Going back to the courses I took during my time as an undergraduate student, this all links back to psychology. From an evolutionary perspective, women were forced to communicate with one another and socialize. Ancestral women, for example, spent most of their time gathering and looking after the young together which required them to bond well with one another. Yet communicating with one another was not just a way to bond, but a way to stay safe. Gossip became a way that women could protect one another and their families against any violence or harm. They could share which plants were safe to eat, how to make ill children feel better, and share any brutality they endured in the hope to protect others. It became a survival mechanism.

Men, on the other hand, have the drive to gain status and win the favor of females so that they can mate and pass on their genes as evolutionary psychology explains. Since women are more choosy, men try to outdo one another. A modern term for this is peacocking, which simply put, is “something men do in order to highlight their strong points in order to stand out from their competition” as dating expert and coach, James Preece states.

Therefore, it makes sense why women use more socially-driven platforms and form certain habits whereas men tend to use more status-seeking platforms. It is all thanks to evolution.