Battle of the (Social) Sexes

The Battle of the (Social) Sexes infographic from InternetServiceProviders.org explores some of the demographic data behind social media.

You’ve no doubt heard the old, oft-quoted adage, “men are from Mars, women are from Venus,” used to denote the fact that men and women may not always see completely eye to eye. While this light-hearted statement isn’t taken literally, when it comes to the virtual world of Internet interactions, similar sentiments may be formed surrounding the different ways men and women use social networking. While the majority of adults in the US are plugged into some sort of social media outlet, not all of them are used in equal measure, and not all of them are used by both genders equally. For instance, the average Google+ user spend just three minutes per month on the network, while the average Facebook user will spend 405 minutes per month updating statuses, posting pictures, and checking out others’ profiles. So what can be learned about men and women in the world of the web? As is turns out, men and women tend to dominate very different social media networks. The following infographic takes a look at some of the differences between male and female-dominated social media sites: How many users each one has, as well as how they interact.

There’s so really good data they have compiled in here, and most of the data visualizations are easy to understand.  I would not have expected to see that Twitter has 40 million more female users each month.

There are a handful of minor tweaks that would help improve the design:

• The salmon/orange/peach color for women is unexpected compared to the traditional pink.

• Go ahead and use the official Twitter and Facebook icons. No need to design their own.

• The pie slices for time spent would work much better with colors that are more distinct. The different shades of gray are very hard to differentiate.

• For the pie charts, the text label should be placed next to the pie slice its describing, instead of the opposite side as shown in this design. Flipping the pie charts horizontally would fix that easily.

I appreciate the clear Creative Commons license in the footer, but the URL to the original infographic lansing page is missing.  Since the infographic image file is shared by itself, the URL always helps readers to find the original.

Found on Ragan’s PR Daily