Frazzled by Facebook? An Exploratory Study of Gender Differences in Social Network Communication among Undergraduate Men and Women

Although a majority of young adults are members of at least one social networking site, peer reviewed research examining gender differences in social networking communication is sparse. This study examined gender differences in social networking, particularly for Facebook use, among undergraduates. A survey was distributed to 268 college students who were primarily freshmen (76%), female (53.3%), Caucasian (76.5%) with a mean age of 19.10 years (SD = 2.4). Minutes they reported daily on the internet, social networking, and Facebook were 217.2 (SD = 198.36), 117.2, (SD = 131.7), and 106.8 (SD = 120.3), respectively. Most (94%) had Facebook accounts. For Facebook users, gender differences were examined and females were more likely than males to report spending more time on Facebook than intended (p Key words: social networking, gender, online communication, undergraduates, stress Introduction Almost 75% of teens and young adults are members of at least one social networking site. Of the many social networking choices available, MySpace and Facebook are the most widely used. According to the Facebook's factsheet (2011a), "Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family, and coworkers." When one considers that Facebook was founded less than a decade ago, it is amazing that there are now more than 500 million users--250 million of which log into the site daily (Facebook, 2011b). Facebook users not only log in often, but many users also spend vast amounts of time on the site as it is reported on their site that account holders spend 700 billion minutes per month (Facebook, 2011b). Social networking sites such as Facebook are a relatively new phenomenon so research on the role they play in the lives of young people is also just beginning to emerge (Brown & Bobkowski, 2011) and is quite limited (Mikami, Szwedo, Allen, Evans, & Hare, 2010). Because social networking plays an influential role in young people's lives, researchers have noted that it is important they learn to use media in a healthy and intelligent way (Brown & Bobkowski, 2011). According to Mikami et al., (2010) there are two inverse arguments related to social network use by young people. The first argument is that internet communication may be related to social adjustment problems because online communication is generally considered to be of poorer quality than face-to-face communication and that youth with social skill problems are often drawn to internet interaction. In contrast, the second argument is that online communication may help adjustment because young people can use online communication as yet another place to interact with existing friends and meet others. With these two hypotheses in mind, Mikami et al. (2010) conducted a study of behavioral adjustment at ages 13-14 and then again 22-23 years and found that those who use social networking websites, both early in adolescence and in young adulthood, were the best adjusted youths. They hypothesized that young people with poor social skills likely use online activities with more anonymity whereby well-adjusted young people use social networking websites where they can be highly visible. These findings were in direct contrast to those reported by Kalpidou, Costin, & Morris (2011) who surveyed college underclassmen and upperclassmen to determine if Facebook use was related to self-esteem. …

Field of study: Education