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Gender roles and stereotypes have slowly started to change in society within the past few decades. These changes occur mostly in communication, but more specifically during social interactions.[154] The ways people communicate and socialize have also started to change alongside advancement in technology. One of the biggest reasons for this change is due to social media.

Over the past few years, the use of social media globally has started to rise. This rise can be contributed to the abundance of technology available for use among youth. Recent studies suggest that men and women value and use technology differently. Forbes published an article in 2010 that reported 57% of Facebook users are women, which attributed to the fact that women are more active on social media, because on average women have 8% more friends and account for 62% of posts that are shared via. Facebook. Another study in 2010 found that in most Western cultures, women spend more time sending text messages compared to men, as well as spend more time on social networking sites as a way to communicate between friends and family.

Young adults in the U.S. frequently use social networking sites as a way to connect and communicate with one another, as well as to satisfy their curiosity. Adolescent girls generally use social networking sites as a tool to communicate with peers and reinforce existing relationships; boys on the other hand tend to use social networking sites as a tool to meet new friends and acquaintances. More importantly, social networking sites have allowed individuals to truly express themselves, as they are able to create an identity and socialize with other individuals that can relate. Social networking sites have also given individuals access to create a space where they feel more comfortable about their sexuality. Recent research has indicated that social media is becoming a stronger part of younger individuals media culture, as more intimate stories are being told via. social media and are being intertwined with gender, sexuality, and relationships.

"Teens as a demographic group are avid internet and social media users in the United States. A recent survey found that almost all U.S. teens (95%) aged 12 through 17 are online, compared to only 78% of adults. Of these teens, 80% have profiles on social media sites, as compared to only 64% of the online population aged 30 and older. According to a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 11-to-18 year olds spend on average over one and a half hours a day using a computer and 27 minutes per day visiting social network sites, more than one fourth of their daily computer use. "

Social media is more than just communication of words, but pictures and how individuals display themselves also plays a very big role. Research conducted in 2013 found that over 57% of pictures posted on social networking sites were sexual, and were created to gain attention. More shockingly, 58% of women and 45% of men don't even look into the camera, creating an illusion of withdrawal. Other factors to be considered are poises of pictures such as women laying down in subordinate positions, or even touching themselves in child like ways. In conclusion, research has found that images shared online through social networking sites help establish personal self-reflections that individuals want to share with the world.

Social media goes beyond the role of helping individuals express themselves, as it has grown to help individuals create relationships, particularly romantic relationships. A large amount of social media users have found it easier to create relationships in a less direct approach, compared to the traditional approach of awkwardly asking for someone's number.

Social media play a big role when it comes to communication between genders. Therefore, it's important to understand how gender stereotypes develop during online interactions. Research in the 1990s suggested that different genders display certain traits such as being active, attractive, dependent, dominant, independent, sentimental, sexy, and submissive when it comes to online interaction.[155] Even though these traits continue to be displayed through gender stereotypes, recent studies show that this isn't necessarily the case anymore.[156]

According to recent research, gender plays a strong role in structuring our social lives, especially since society assigns and creates “male” and “female” categories.[157] Individuals in society might be able to learn the similarities between gender rather than the differences. Until then gender will never truly be equal, which is a problem.[158] Social media helps create more equality, because every individual is able to express him or herself however they like. Every individual also has the right to express their opinion, even though some might disagree, but it still gives each gender an equal amount of power to be heard. [159]

Gender Differences in Online Posts

Teen girls and boys differ in what they post in their online profiles. Studies have shown that female users tend to post more "cute" pictures, while male participants were more likely to post pictures of them doing action activities. Women in the U.S. also tend to post more pictures of friends, while boys tend to post more about sports, and humorous links. The study also found that males would post more alcohol and sexual references. The roles were reversed however, when looking at a teenage dating site. Women refereed to sexual references significantly more than males.

Boys share more personal information, like their hometown and phone number. While girls are more conservative about the personal information they allow to go public on these sites.Boys, meanwhile, are more likely to orient towards technology, sports, and humor in the information they post to their profile (Sveningsson Elm, 2007)

References

Bahmann, D. (2014, April 1). Gender identity and lexical variation in social media. Retrieved February 20, 2016, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josl.12080/full

Gauntlett, D. (n.d.). Media, Gender and Identity. Retrieved February 20, 2016, from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ScR9AgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=gender%2Band%2Bsocial%2Bmedia&ots=cOZ_nqQevF&sig=FMyJM_9G-0bHhHExAwv4pu4g4Ho#v=onepage&q=gender%20and%20social%20media&f=false

Herring, I. (n.d.). Teens, Gender, and Self-Presentation in Social Media. Sciences, 2 Nd Edition. Oxford: Elsevier. Teens, Gender, and Self-Presentation in Social Media. Retrieved February 20, 2016, from http://info.ils.indiana.edu/~herring/teens.gender.pdf

Hodkinson, P. (2015). Bedrooms and beyond: Youth, identity and privacy on social network sites. New Media & Society. doi:10.1177/1461444815605454

Rose, J. (2012, October 26). Face it: The Impact of Gender on Social Media Images. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01463373.2012.725005

Schwartz, A. (2013, September 25). Personality, Gender, and Age in the Language of Social Media: The Open-Vocabulary Approach. Retrieved February 20, 2016, from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0073791