Men Rule on Twitter

By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

A Harvard Business School study on Twitter usage reveals some interesting patterns with respect to men and women.

First of all, there are slightly more women than men on Twitter – 55% to 45%. However, men have 15% more followers than women. And moreover, men are twice as likely to follow another male user than a female user – and women are 25% more likely to follow men as well. Strangely enough, this data cannot be explained by tweeting activity, as men and women tweet at basically the same rates.

Additionally, this is apparently very different than what happens on most social networks, where activity is usually focused around women.  For example, men tend to follow women they don’t know, women follow women they do know, and men get left out in the cold.

The folks who conducted the study have a theory as to why men may have the advantage on Twitter:

We wonder to what extent this pattern of results arises because men and women find the content produced by other men on Twitter more compelling than on a typical social network, and men find the content produced by women less compelling (because of a lack of photo sharing, detailed biographies, etc.).

Curiouser and curiouser. Assuming that this data is actually an accurate representation of the Twitterverse, I’m pretty stumped as to how the content produced by men and women might really differ. Have any of you Twitterers out there noticed any differences in that regard?

[Image Source: Flickr (CC)]