Analysis of differences between women and men in the use of social networks

 
Received:30/04/2017

Accepted: 19/03/2018
 
Introduction and problematic of research: Gender Variable has various effects in media consumption (Sayvan & Katzgrowo, 2004) as it influences women's choices in using media (Fisk, 2011).  In the same vein, Straintati (1999) states that because of the fundamental differences between men and women in terms of gender and mentality, every experience is influenced by the specific circumstances of the situation and is different, so women and men can have their own special experience from any media.  Abdollahyan (2004) also pointed out that the age of people, along with their gender, determines the kind of information that they store for collective life.  He also emphasizes, "The mechanism of information storage and reproduction of values in mind and in the value system of women and men is different".  Accordingly, how to confront and exploit the Internet for men and women is different.  Therefore, here we intend to study the role of gender variable in the use of social networks.
Theoretical framework: According to the "uses and gratification" approach, if we consider "female" and "male" individuals in terms of psychological backgrounds, one can say that media influences "woman and man" differently.  Based on the "uses and gratification" approach, the power of choices and actions of male and female audiences, can result from conditions affecting the social environment as well as their psychological characteristics.  In other words, women and men may have different criteria for selecting a particular media.  This is true for choosing the topics used in the media by men and women.  This means that both men and women can communicate in different ways with the media and use them differently.  Accordingly, based on uses and gratification theory this we draw the following hypothesis:
         ·            The gender variable determines the type of behavior (dependent variable 1) and the extent to which users use the Internet (dependent variable 2).
Methodology: Using a survey method, we determined the unit of analysis to be statistical society of students at Yasouj University.  The time of survey spanned between 2014 and 2015, from which and based on Lin sampling table (1976), about 400 cases were selected to form the sample size.  Then and based on multi-stage random sampling method, the actual samples were selected.  The method of sampling and collection of the research data was based on the Line table.  We calculated the ratios of each faculty, grade, and gender and then ran the sampling technique.  In the next step, the researchers randomly distributed questionnaires among colleges students.
In the field of social networks, we created our self-made questionnaire and we used 7 questions: "membership status", "priority of using a network over other networks", "membership record", "daily activity rate," " The type of material used "; and the" type of use "of the users of these networks is questioned.  These questions, using a background study in this field, were pre-tested, evaluated, designed, and applied.  In order to determine the validity of the questionnaire, we asked a number of sociology professors to give us their feedback and their corrective points were included in the final version of the questionnaire.  After collecting the required information, we transferred the data to the SPSS software for analysis.  The analysis was done in the descriptive and inferential mode of statistics.
 
Findings: Some of the results show that men had more "membership" (dependent variable) than women in the Internet and also had more "membership experience" (dependent variable) in these networks.  By contrast, women engaged in a more "extensive" use (dependent variable) than men did.  The results also show that women and men used "telegram", "Facebook" and "other social networks" respectively.  In the field of "the type of content used by social networks" (dependent variable), men  used more the "emotional", "political" and "religious" contents respectively; and women  used more "emotional", "religious" and "political" content than others.  There was also no significant difference between women and men in the field of "the type of the network use" (dependent variable).  Some mode of communication such as "chat", "NEWS" and "download" were the most commonly used for men and women respectively.
Prominent results: The most important achievement of the present article is the analytical aspect that affects the collaborative experience and the extent the new technologies in society have developed.  It is also interesting to know how men and women confront social networks and how the technology exploits women and men.  Although the psychological characteristics of women and men makes them to be fairly different, the gender variable, apart from the generational characteristics and the extent of the development of technology in society, cannot determine the style of using the networks.  This means that the difference between women and men in media consumption is to some extent the consequence of developing new media outlets, generational experiences and the normative value system of the society