Proposed Thesis: While some people may disagree, gender can actually affect the way men and women interact on social networks. Their gender can influence their perceptions and the impact shared content has on them.
Premise#1: Similar to the real world, men and women tend to behave differently while using their social media accounts. One such difference is in their perceptions of social networks. Each gender develops specific feelings and attitudes toward their interaction via social media.
- Textual Evidence: As noticed by Idemudia et al., “females have a stronger and significant perception of ease of use, compatibility, relative advantage, and risk when using social media” (1). At the same time, “males have a stronger perception of satisfaction and information quality when using social media compared to females” (Idemudia et al. 1).
Premise#2: It is possible to examine the differences in men’s and women’s use of social networks by exploring shared content’s impact on them. Shared content includes photos, videos, text posts, and reviews. Analyzing this factor in the example of travel content may be useful and insightful.
- Textual Evidence: According to Karatsoli and Nathanail, it is actually possible to associate social media use for travel arrangements and activity planning with gender. As stated by the authors, “photos/videos influence women’s decisions more often than men.”
Premise#3: Further, it is essential to mention that it is possible to distinguish between a male and a female social network user based on their behavior.
- Textual Evidence: Psylla et al. state that social media behavior and users’ personal characteristics allow for predicting their gender.
Counter Argument. Despite the facts mentioned above, it is still possible to suggest that all the differences between how females and males use social networks are associated with each person’s individual characteristics, not their gender. For example, Correa et al. state that “factors such as extraversion, emotional stability, and openness to experience are related to uses of social applications” (247).
Works Cited
Correa, Teresa, et al. “Who Interacts on the Web?: The Intersection of Users’ Personality and Social Media Use.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 26, no. 2, 2010, pp. 247-253.
Idemudia, Efosa C., et al. “The Effects of Gender on the Adoption of Social Media: An Empirical Investigation.” Twenty-third Americas Conference on Information Systems, Boston, 2017. Web.
Karatsoli, Maria, and Eftihia Nathanail. “Examining Gender Differences of Social Media Use for Activity Planning and Travel Choices.” European Transport Research Review, vol. 12, no. 44, 2020.
Psylla, Ioanna, et al. “The Role of Gender in Social Network Organization.” PLoS ONE, vol. 12, no. 12, 2017.