Men, Women And The On/Off-line Social Connection
You’ve likely seen a new theme on this blog if you’ve been paying any attention. Because I am seeing so much of it, I’m focusing a lot more on the examples and research showing that men are starting to behave/buy/make decisions in what would previously have been called “a woman’s way.” One more thing to add to that list: online connecting.
We all know that women are legend in their off-line, real-time social connecting, but we have probably also assumed that women behave this way online. Well, yes – to a degree, but not, it now seems, to the extent that men connect with others online. In fact, there is new research that shows men prefer online connecting.
As reported by Alex Mindlin in the New York Times, the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California tracked 2,000 households to discover this:
They are 13 percentage points more likely to report that they “feel as strongly” about their online communities as about their off-line ones, and they outnumber women three to one within the small pool of people who say that their online life cuts back on time spent with flesh-and-blood friends. “Women seem to more value their real-world and off-line relationships,” said Michael Gilbert, a senior fellow at the center.
Sociological studies would probably point to the way men tend to resist becoming as “intimate” in communication as women so easily do (or want to). This isn’t only a male-female/husband-wife phenomenon, but something that likely hinders more solid connections between men in their friend relationships as well. Women have a way of gathering lots of friends and building deep connections, where men have a way of living without those things for the most part.
Which leads me to this – the online realm has been the easiest and first place where men have been “allowed” (mainly because it is so anonymous) to peruse and buy more like women, and to perhaps start buying more typically “feminine” products (fashion, haircare and such). Thus, the computer monitor/barrier in one way has helped men get more holistic with their purchase processes, and so that monitor/barrier has also led the way to an easier path toward building/maintaining strong friendships. Barriers don’t often make new thinking possible, do they?
Anyway -
Men are connecting with other men they aren’t likely to meet in person, so it is not as uncomfortable to show concern, care and support when the situation arises. Their screen-names or personas let a whole other side of who they are emerge (sometimes for the bad, it’s true). Maybe men are testing the waters for bringing more of that whole-brain processing and relating off-line?
This makes me think two things for today’s marketers:
1) We probably aren’t studying/leveraging men’s online social networking the ways we could.
2) We can’t rely entirely on online social network/community space for women as the be-all marketing strategy. Women are used to and need old-fashioned physical face-to-face, even as much as they thrive in online friend-making. The marketing challenge is in integrating the two to perfection.
Interestingly, and also according to Mindlin’s article on the new Annenberg Center research, women have more integrated, on/off-line, reading habits, while men mainly read online.
The sexes also read differently, according to the data: Every week, women spend two more nonwork hours reading ink-and-paper books than men; men are more likely than women to spend their leisure time reading media online.
Women tend to live life by way of some sort of innate balance, because their brains are wired that way and because they’ve been socialized along those lines. Online works well for them, but off-line still has its merits. Facts/figures are important, but the emotional or intangible side of life, or a brand, matters too.
Today, men seem to be attempting that sort of balance. Perhaps they head to the online social realm to more anonymously practice this intimate communication “thing?” No matter – and thanks to the Internet, men are starting to engage and see the life benefits of the “woman’s way,” beyond-linear style of buying and connecting.
Note: Of course, I am no sociologist, so would love to hear that perspective from a reader or two…
