Use of Facebook, which now has more than 175 million active users world-wide, is consistent with a wide variety of evidence indicating that females are more sociable than males. Worldwide, Facebook has 1.18 female users per male user. In the U.S., which is the country with the largest number of Facebook users, Facebook has 1.36 female users per male user.
Women are more socially engaged on Facebook than are men. The average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site. For Facebook users with 150 friends, women post comments on 11 friends’ Facebook pages, while men post comments on 7 friends’ Facebook pages. Similarly, women engage in email or chat with 7 friends on Facebook, while men do so with 5 friends on Facebook. A similar pattern of sex difference also occurs for Facebook users with 50 and 500 Facebook friends.
|
Facebook friend count & user’s sex
|
||||||
|
50
|
150
|
500
|
||||
|
social activity with friends
|
women
|
men
|
women
|
men
|
women
|
men
|
|
maintained relationship (clicked on a friend’s News Feed story or visited his/her profile more than twice)
|
10
|
9
|
22
|
19
|
47
|
39
|
|
one-way communication (friends on whose pages posts comments)
|
6
|
4
|
11
|
7
|
26
|
17
|
|
mutual communication (friends with which engages in chat or email)
|
4
|
3
|
7
|
5
|
16
|
10
|
Data: distribution of Facebook friends by social activity and sex (Excel version)