A survey of 2,277 adults by Pew Research reports that users have become more active in managing their relationships and taking advantage of privacy controls when compared with data from a few years ago. The study looks at accounts from Facebook, LinkedIn, and My Space. The fact that more users are taking advantage of privacy controls shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
The surprise comes when they break the data down by gender. Over 25% of men chose to share their personal profiles with the most public settings, basically leaving access unrestricted. Only 14% of women did the same.
The number of men who chose to only share with friends was about 48%, which is significantly lower than women, who chose to do this in 67% of the cases. Also interesting is that 67% of women agreed that they had kicked users out of their social circles, while only 58% of men agreed to the same.
Another finer point of the study was the percentage of men who regretted making certain comments on their social networking pages. 15% of men said they had made comments they regretted. Less than half, 7% of women reported regretting the comments they made.
So there you have it, woman are acting more responsible in their social circles than men are. I don’t know if any of that is a surprise.