Profile Pictures: Male vs. Female
Monday, July 27, 2009 by Jess
Going off the discussion in the lecture today about social networking website profile pictures, and what (if any) differences there are between the pictures of males and females, I had a quick browse through my friend list to investigate this further.
In the lecture, ideas were raised as to whether females have more solo pictures of themselves than males, and whether males have more 'random' or 'humorous' pictures, or pictures that aren't necessarily of themselves.
However, I found that nearly all the people in my friend network on Facebook (both males and females) have profile pictures that are of more than one person; usually a photo taken in a social situation with friends, such as at a party or some other setting. Interestingly enough, as was discussed in the lecture, females were more likely to have profile pictures of themselves. There was only a few males who had profile pictures that were of themselves, and (as also brought up in the lecture), they were often doing something, and not just posing for the camera as most of the females were in their solo photos.
But the majority of the people in my network, as mentioned, have profile photos of themselves with at least one other person. So perhaps, the ideas that there is a large difference in this area between males and females that were brought up today are not necessarily true in reality.
In the lecture, ideas were raised as to whether females have more solo pictures of themselves than males, and whether males have more 'random' or 'humorous' pictures, or pictures that aren't necessarily of themselves.
However, I found that nearly all the people in my friend network on Facebook (both males and females) have profile pictures that are of more than one person; usually a photo taken in a social situation with friends, such as at a party or some other setting. Interestingly enough, as was discussed in the lecture, females were more likely to have profile pictures of themselves. There was only a few males who had profile pictures that were of themselves, and (as also brought up in the lecture), they were often doing something, and not just posing for the camera as most of the females were in their solo photos.
But the majority of the people in my network, as mentioned, have profile photos of themselves with at least one other person. So perhaps, the ideas that there is a large difference in this area between males and females that were brought up today are not necessarily true in reality.
I wonder if the differences are, um, different on other SNS, e.g. MySpace and Bebo...
A quick look at both Myspace and Bebo finds that on Bebo the profile picture situation is similar to Facebook - social photos with friends, etc. But solo profile pictures seem to be more prevalent on Myspace, with the classic 'Myspace Pose' being popular with males and females. I'm not sure why this would be though.