Posts on social media can show how gender equality is still prevalent, study states
| Jan 28, 2019, 15:47 IST
A new study has found that people mention their sons more often than they mention their daughters online. Social media has become a lot more prevalent over the last few years which is why researchers prefer getting most of their data from these portals. It also allows them to observe daily interactions and how people function on a day to day basis. A few researchers used this idea to get an insight into how gender inequality is prevalent on social media.
They went to a social media portal that is famous in Russia and compared data from 6,35,665 users who had put up posts about children which included celebrations of different achievements and important events, declarations of love, affection, and pride and even just spending time with their kids. It was found that there was a significant gender imbalance. There were 20% more posts about sons than daughters on the social media sites.
“This imbalance could send a signal that girls are less significant than boys. The fact that posts about sons get more likes only enhances this,” said one researcher. “The gender preference in sharing information about children may seem quite harmless compared with other layers of gender disparity. However, given the widespread popularity of social media, even moderate bias might accumulate. Millions of users are exposed to a gender-biased news feed on a daily basis and, without even noticing, receive the reaffirmation that paying more attention to sons is normal,” the researcher added. Stay tuned for more updates.
They went to a social media portal that is famous in Russia and compared data from 6,35,665 users who had put up posts about children which included celebrations of different achievements and important events, declarations of love, affection, and pride and even just spending time with their kids. It was found that there was a significant gender imbalance. There were 20% more posts about sons than daughters on the social media sites.
“This imbalance could send a signal that girls are less significant than boys. The fact that posts about sons get more likes only enhances this,” said one researcher. “The gender preference in sharing information about children may seem quite harmless compared with other layers of gender disparity. However, given the widespread popularity of social media, even moderate bias might accumulate. Millions of users are exposed to a gender-biased news feed on a daily basis and, without even noticing, receive the reaffirmation that paying more attention to sons is normal,” the researcher added. Stay tuned for more updates.