Sep 16th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Why Social Networking
What do people do with social networking sites?
The biggest discovery: pictures. “People just love to look at pictures,” says Piskorski. “That’s the killer app of all online social networks. Seventy percent of all actions are related to viewing pictures or viewing other people’s profiles.” [...]
Piskorski has also found deep gender differences in the use of sites. The biggest usage categories are men looking at women they don’t know, followed by men looking at women they do know. Women look at other women they know. Overall, women receive two-thirds of all page views.
This is because on the savanna it was very important for men to be familiar with what strange women looked like in case of a chance encounter while out hunting for gazelle.
52 Responses to “Why Social Networking”
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September 16th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Strange women hunted gazelles?
September 16th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Sarcasm?
Why would men want to look at pictures of other dudes?
September 16th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Don’t forget that the lower incidence of disease transmission in lesbian sex leads to woman looking at other women more than they look at men (and much more than men look at other men). Ignore any contradictions in the data. /evo-psych troll
September 16th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
No, it is because men are taught from an early age that proper male behavior is looking at women’s profiles on social networking site while women are taught that using technology to look at men makes them gain twenty pounds.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
From conversations with women I’ve known, most women don’t like looking at guys much either.
A guy has to be absolutely stunning before most women give a shit, while your average guy can get distracted by the last halfway decent rack to walk by.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
If you do a Google image search for Matt Yglesias the 15th hit is a photo of Amy Winehouse thus proving…something.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Ability to spin tantalizing evo-psych theories leads to stable tenured income, which is attractive to potential mates. Thus . . .
September 16th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
“A guy has to be absolutely stunning before most women give a shit”
Oh I don’t know about that, I’m a straight woman, and I can appreciate a half-way decent looking man. I think most women can appreciate some semblance of male attractivenss, not just the model level kind. But just from life experience it seems to me, a good portion of women at least, don’t oggle or stare when in the presence of a somewhat good looking guy, that is true. They do have to be stunning to be truly distracting to a woman it seems. Perhaps we are just better multi-taskers
September 16th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Perhaps we are just better multi-taskers
No perhaps about it. There’s a lot of evidence that supports that conclusion.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I would question the Unfamiliar Women > Familiar Women data point, especially for sites like facebook, which largely restrict access to profiles / photos / etc of random unfamiliar people.
Could this be an artifact of the way the data is captured? (i.e. a photo of a friend taken by some 3rd person you don’t know gets counted as a photo of the unfamiliar person)
September 16th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
No, that’s not it. Research has shown that humans and primates (and some dogs) stare for longer periods of time at stuff they don’t understand or didn’t expect to see. It is a sign of intelligence!
Men are simply dull and uninteresting.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
> This is because on the savanna it was very important for men to be familiar with what strange women looked like in case of a chance encounter while out hunting for gazelle.
i agree with you. the fact is that robin hanson defined the rules for evolution before life came to this planet.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
I figure it’s because we’re pretty visual creatures (our eyes are heavily developed and utilized to a degree that none of our other senses match), and so we get the biggest stimuli from images.
I always figured it was because women tend to place a higher priority on non-appearance factors when choosing guys, like status and so forth.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Strange women hunted gazelles?
Ordinary women hunt bargains.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Brett has it…
Women want money and emotional faithfulness in their mate while
men want looks and sexual fidelity.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
i can’t tell whether matt was being serious or joking with that evolutionary psychology bit at the end, but it made me laugh out loud regardless.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
It took some researcher “years studying users of online social networks” to figure this out? I could have told her in 5 seconds.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Butthead: Get down Beavis!
Beavis: I AM getting down!
September 16th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Men check out women primarily on the basis of looks. Women check out men on a variety of bases.
Since women know this, they compare themselves to other women. Women look through photos of their friends/competitors, examining their clothing, their hair, their poise, their makeup, etc. In the U.S. at least, men can’t tell what clothing or hair styles look good on them.
I’d be interested in seeing the same set of numbers for, say, a Brazilian or Greek subset of social networks.
Also, men are generally the ones who chat women up, who ask women out on dates, who propose marriage, etc. So they select which women they’re interested in. Women generally are petitioned by men, and reject or accept the petition.
Obviously all this is generalization.
September 16th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
From a sexual perspective, most male cardinals find female cardinals more attractive, and most female cardinals find male cardinals more attractive. However, humans, for whom the sexual stuff is pretty much irrelevant in appreciating the aesthetics of birds, tend to find male cardinals more appealing, thanks to their more vivid coloration. There is a common, asexual human aesthetic which is inclined to see male cardinals are more visually appealing than female cardinals. I don’t deny that there are exceptions, but that’s more common among both men and women.
Is it inconceivable that in the case of humans, while most women find men more sexually attractive, and most men find women more sexually attractive, from an asexual human aesthetic perspective, most people find women more visually appealing? Naturally, there’s a lot of cultural stuff, the male gaze, the Ancient Greeks thought otherwise, etc, so it doesn’t seem likely, but it’s a possibility that always raises itself in my mind.
September 16th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Is it inconceivable that in the case of humans. . .most people find women more visually appealing?
Given all the cultural stuff you mention, it’s impossible to know, unless you show images of men and women who are rated by adults to be equally attractive at babies and then see which faces they look at more–the male ones or the female ones. Even this is is bound up with the biological attachment babies have with their mothers, which might conceivably tip the scales.
Also, especially in the U.S. (as opposed to Western Europe) men dress like slobs a lot; women dress and groom and carry themselves better because they know that that’s how they’re judged, not just as potential sexual mates, but generally, by men and by other women.
September 16th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
This is because on the savanna it was very important for men to be familiar with what strange women looked like in case of a chance encounter while out hunting for gazelle.
You misspelled “veldt”.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Love the evolutionary psychology snark!
But the real reason for it all is that Internet porn has already evolved both genders to be constantly looking for women on the Web. The “new savanna,” as it were.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I’ve always had a thing for Stan Musial.
From a sexual perspective, most male cardinals find female cardinals more attractive, and most female cardinals find male cardinals more attractive. However, humans, for whom the sexual stuff is pretty much irrelevant in appreciating the aesthetics of birds, tend to find male cardinals more appealing, thanks to their more vivid coloration. There is a common, asexual human aesthetic which is inclined to see male cardinals are more visually appealing than female cardinals. I don’t deny that there are exceptions, but that’s more common among both men and women.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Yeah men enjoy looking at pictures of pretty girls, regardless of whether they know them. There are more pretty girls on Facebook that you don’t know than those you do.
All of which reminds me of the “beer-goggles” experiment on mythbusters last week, where the subjects had to drink beer and rate random faces from 1-10.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I’ve always had a thing for Stan Musial.
And Richelieu, eminence grise of 16th-Century France, was totally hott. Sort of a Baroque Henry Kissinger.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Thanks for the Pound poem. Not enough of that kind of thing.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
From conversations with women I’ve known, most women don’t like looking at guys much either.
I’m tempted to take a poll on which prominent young male blogger is cutest. I’d lay odds that many heterosexual female blog readers have checked out the photos and have a firm opinion on the topic. (That’s not even getting into how many women you can get interested in a thread about cute male movie stars, since cute male movie stars are kind of unfair competition.)
September 16th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
A college friend of mine was lamenting her 13-year-old son staring gape-mouthed at attractive women, and I advised her to tell him that looking at women is like looking at the sun. You glance and turn away quickly, and then process what you saw in your brain.
Also, it’s too bad that Ezra Pound was (a) certifiably insane and (b) a traitor, because for my money he was the best poet of the 20th century. OK, maybe a tie with William Carlos Williams.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
most women don’t like looking at guys much either
I think most single straight guys’ profile pics are terrible, actually– lots of doughy men afflicted with bad grooming choices (goatees are out, and they look terrible on heavy-faced men anyway) who are trying to look soulful/sensitive, with a smattering of woo-hoo-I’m-a-party-animal-with-babes snapshots. There’s no point in looking at them IME.
That said, I’ve noticed a bit of peekaboo in looking up exes on FB– two of mine that I haven’t friended either have coincidentally changed their privacy/photo-style preferences on the same schedule as I have, or there’s some mirroring going on. Go figure.
September 16th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Nitpick: Richelieu wasn’t the eminence grise. Richelieu was the eminence rouge because he was an actual cardinal (what the “eminence” referred to) and wore their characteristic red (or in French, “rouge”) outfit.
“Eminence grise” was coined to refer to François Leclerc du Tremblay, who was not actually a cardinal but had influence through his relationship to Richelieu – in other words, had influence beyond his official position, which is the modern figurative meaning of “eminence grise”.
September 16th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I’m tempted to take a poll on which prominent young male blogger is cutest.
Wait, don’t they do this? And doesn’t Ezra win like every fucking time?
September 16th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Re: Also, it’s too bad that Ezra Pound was (a) certifiably insane and (b) a traitor, because for my money he was the best poet of the 20th century.
I believe it was Arthur Miller who once said that in his estimation, Ezra Pound was worse than Hitler. A pity, because I do like his “Canto 46″ which links capitalism, abortion, and assorted other offences against natural law.
The fact of his being an anti-Semitic creep aside, though, Pound wasn’t the best poet of the century. That would be Yeats.
September 16th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
@19: In the U.S. at least, men can’t tell what clothing or hair styles look good on them.
I think this generalization only applies to straight, white, non-Hispanic males in the US.
September 16th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Also, you should probably replace “can’t tell” with “don’t care.”
September 16th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Pound wasn’t the best poet of the century. That would be Yeats.
You mispelt Neruda.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I think this generalization only applies to straight, white, non-Hispanic males in the US.
Also applies to Asians.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Indeed, as people (male and female) have mentioned to me: the male form is just ugly compared to the female form.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Yes, checkout a website like hotornot.com
Half the guys are wearing baseball hats.
They have no clue how it makes them look.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
David,
Sorry. I was talking specifically about writers in the Anglo-American language tradition (and yes, that includes the Irish). I don’t know enough about poets in other cultures to comment.
September 16th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Moderately overweight men do look worse than moderately overweight women. Of course, in human history, very few people were moderately overweight by today’s standards.
September 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
‘I’m tempted to take a poll on which prominent young male blogger is cutest.
Wait, don’t they do this? And doesn’t Ezra win like every fucking time?
Ezra Pound?
September 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
“Indeed, as people (male and female) have mentioned to me: the male form is just ugly compared to the female form.”
There are these strange, mysterious elves who live in the entertainment industry called “gays” who are characterised by their disagreement to this statement.
September 19th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Honeychild, wha ‘yo talk’n ’bout?
Ain’t no Gazelles in Savannah!!!
My sister done hit a skunk, though
September 19th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Enlightening, but you lost me with the gazelles.
September 19th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Really not too surprising, as the internet is a primarily visual medium (with some auditory and tactile stimuli). Compare to other visual media, e.g., magazines: even factoring in the obvious niche publications dedicated to male representation, there are far more images of women than men in both “men’s” and “women’s” magazines. Media with a heavy auditory component, e.g., popular music or tv, focus more on men than on women (although there is increasing parity, there are still more men than women on tv, yes). I don’t think the “social networking” piece has as much to do with this disparity as the sensory question does.
It does seem that men are hard-wired to make decisions about mates on a primarily visual basis, yes. And while I’ll agree that there are numerous factors that influence female attraction, for myself I will just say that the olfactory should *not* be under-rated. A guy can look like a god, but if he smells like a dog he’s not getting near me – and that’s the major reason that there is no point in “checking out” a man online.
Now, if we ever invent a medium that
September 19th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Dare I point out that familiarity with the strange transforms the strange into the familiar? Which may help to flesh out the etymology of the term “old reliable.”
Also, it appears that the thesis you quote puts paid to Jim Morrison’s notion that “People are strange / when you’re a stranger / faces look ugly / when you’re alone.” Take that, you late Lizard King.
September 19th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Women check out other womens pictures to see their shoes, because there may be a pair of shoes left on the face of the earth they don’t own.
September 19th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I’ve noticed on facebook (and in life) that women tend to post many more pictures than men. It’s not often that i hear men say, “let me get a group picture.” And when looking at pictures of a man I know, most of his tagged pictures will be taken by his female friends. I wonder if this was taken into account by the researchers.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:51 am
My daughter and her daughters are constantly changing their facebook pictures and I can’t get any of them interested in gazelle hunting.
Where are the baby-boomer women of the 70s who ran with the wolves ?
September 21st, 2009 at 12:16 am
Men look at women because they are searching for potential mates – that’s what evolution bred them to do, they hunt. Women don’t need to look at men – the men will find them, as they are the ones hoarding the scarecer reproductive resource. Women will look at other women as potential cooperators in rearing offspring or potential competitors for the best mates.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Странно, почему никто не обсуждает эту публикацию ? Тема ведь интересная…