Facebook Inc (FB) Mobile Usage Patterns Show Interesting Gender Splits

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We have yet more evidence women are from Venus and men are from Mars. A study by Alex Hillsberg and David Adelman recently published in FinancesOnline.com highlights that men and women conceive of and use social media network such as Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) etc and mobile devices in very different ways. The authors gathered their statistics from a number of recent studies on social media and mobile use by consumer research firms Pew and Nielsen and others.

Broad differences in using Facebook and mobile devices

According to Hillsberg and Adelman’s research, gender differences in the use of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and mobile devices can be organized into three categories: personal and professional relationships, information and entertainment, and consumer behavior. As an overview, they point out “men are more likely to use social media for business and dating, while women for relationships, sharing, entertainment and self-help.”

Women use smart phones in more ways than men

One fact that stands out is that women clearly use their smartphones for a wider variety of purposes than men do. As Hillsberg and Adelman note, “In fact, women dominate men in almost all the top smartphone activities, such as, visit websites, download apps (surprise!), messaging, text, and camera use.” The statistics even showed that women played games on their smartphones 10% more often than men.

Other notable differences

Women tend to ignore paid advertising on mobile devices more than men.

In terms of using Facebook / mobile devices for shopping, women tend to be more “brand-centric” while men are looking for information or deals. Related to this, men (56%) are more likely to scan coupons or QR codes than women (39%).

In terns of mobile use trends, women are more likely to go for sharing, camera or games, whereas men are morel likely to access videos, news or GPS.

Another difference of note is that around 57% of women use mobile devices for Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, compared to only about 47% of men.

Difference in Facebook and mobile usage infographic

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