Women More Likely To Unfriend Than Men

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Women More Likely To Unfriend Than Men

Posted by timothy on Saturday February 25, 2012 @01:28AM from the culling-the-herd dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "AFP reports that a study by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project shows that women are more likely than men to delete friends from their online social networks like Facebook and tend to choose more restrictive privacy settings. Sixty-seven percent of women who maintain a social networking profile said they have deleted friends compared with 58 percent of men. The study also found that men are nearly twice as likely as women to have posted updates, comments, photos or videos that they later regret (PDF). 'Even as social media users become more active curators of their profile, a small group of what might be described as trigger-happy users say they post updates, comments, photos, or videos that they later regret sharing.'"

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Nothing to see here by dugjohnson · 2012-02-25 01:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

"The study also found that men are nearly twice as likely as women to have posted updates, comments, photos or videos that they later regret " or "Men more impulsive than women" Hmmm. Big surprise there.

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My brain is overly lubricated
1. Re:Nothing to see here by __aarzwb9394 · 2012-02-25 01:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Does this reflect higher concern re stalking (in the spectrum from the dangerous, life ruining/threatening kind to I don't want an old boyfriend to know about me)?
  Seems likely to me.
  I bet those of us worried about privacy in a big brother, what-can-future-employers-find-out-about-me way are more male than female, since that's probably correlated with higher computer literacy.
2. Re:Nothing to see here by Chrisq · 2012-02-25 03:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  More like "Women less regretful than men, more likely to blame others."
  That's possibly true. Socially women are seen as victims if people misuse or ogle their pictures, where as men are seen as "fair game". This would certainly encourage women to feel "poor me, I din nothing wrong its all these nasty people", whereas men would think "oh how could I have been so dumb".
Discretion!! by teknx · 2012-02-25 02:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

What ever happened to discretion? People are so quick to post every thought, feeling, and complaint for the world to see. But then also complain about privacy. No one is forcing you to post about what you ate for breakfast and take a picture of it. The trend seems to point to things only getting worse in the future as more companies focus on you being the product and selling your information and habits to 3rd parties. I remember hearing someone say that if the services are free, YOU are the product.
1. Re:Discretion!! by icebraining · 2012-02-25 05:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I remember hearing someone say that if the services are free, YOU are the product.
  Yet, you're not paying for using Slashdot. What does that make you?
  
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The flipside of that... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-25 02:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Women are more likely to friend people they'll end up unfriending later.
Re:Still holding out. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-25 02:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

Facebook is like most other technologies. You get out of it what you put into it.

News at 11.
Social exclusion is a femal strategy by qualityassurancedept · 2012-02-25 02:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

Female's all over the animal kingdom use social exclusion instead of violence in order to punish other females. Exclusion is the primary competitive strategy for all sorts of female animals. Look it up on Wikipedia. Or google it. Its a widely known fact among researchers in the social science. That's how teenage girls bully each other.

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if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
1. Re:Social exclusion is a femal strategy by Just+Brew+It! · 2012-02-25 02:49 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You didn't even notice that the subject line says "femal", huh?
  While I agree that proper grammar and spelling are something we should strive for, in a web discussion forum "it's the thought that counts". Isn't that the purpose of language -- to convey our thoughts?
  Dismissing someone who may have a worthwhile contribution to the discussion just because they misplaced an apostrophe (or misspelled a word) smacks of elitism. If we measure someone's value by the amount of useful information contributed to the discussion, you're more of a "fuckwit"... by at least an order of magnitude.
2. Re:Social exclusion is a femal strategy by Just+Brew+It! · 2012-02-25 03:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  ...and never assume malice where incompetence will suffice. You'll get through life with a lot less conflict that way.
Re:Still holding out. by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-25 02:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

Facebook is like most other technologies
Facebook is a technology now? That is kind of like calling Slashdot a "technology."

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Palm trees and 8
Re:Still holding out. by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-25 03:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

Which communication modalities aren't under the control of a monopolist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC

you're lucky if you have more than one ISP to choose from.
Except that the Internet is not controlled by that one ISP, only your connection to it. No matter how you connect to Facebook, it is a communication system that is controlled entirely by one company. That is the difference here.

Facebook is different in that the large interconnected user base is what creates the barrier to entry.
No, the fact that Facebook has made no substantial effort at being interoperable with any other system is what creates a barrier to entry.

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Palm trees and 8
Contradictory observations by Deep+Esophagus · 2012-02-25 04:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

My own experience with Facebook friends isn't nearly so clear-cut. My friends fall into one of four categories: People I know from childhood (school), people I know from work, people I know from church (conservative, evangelical) and people I know from a dialup BBS network in the 80s. Of those four groups, only the BBS nerds are an even mix of men and women; in the other three groups women dominate (heh) by a vast majority.
And unlike the survey results mentioned in TFS, my female friends tend to be the ones to chatter about personal issues -- daily photos of children and grandchildren doing cute things, updates about their mood or health, etc. The men write about political issues, cars and other "guy toys", restaurants they like, hunting... and some of them only visit Facebook once a month or less.
So the real news here is... your mileage may vary?
That's because women are more emotionally hostile by EmagGeek · 2012-02-25 07:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

Look at any social group of young teenage girls today. They're the most vile, wretched, undisciplined, emotionally hostile human beings that walk the face of the Earth today. They think nothing of torturing their peers emotionally to the point of suicide.
Women want their enemies to suffer socially and emotionally.