Turns out, there's a major difference in the way men and women share information on Facebook.
According to a new study, women use warmer, gentler words in their Facebook status updates. Meanwhile, men are more likely to swear, express anger, and use argumentative language.
Researchers examined 10 million postings for the study, called "Women Are Warmer But No Less Assertive Than Men: Gender And Language On Facebook.” They looked at the words used by more than 65,000 Facebook users who gave researchers permission to examine their status updates.
Researchers found that women’s posts mostly reflected “compassion and politeness” while men’s were mainly “hostile and impersonal.”
The most commonly cited topics by women included words such as “wonderful,” “happy,” “birthday,” “excited,” and “thankful.” Women were more likely to discuss family and social life. Men, on the other hand, commonly used words such as “freedom,” “liberty,” “win,” “lose,” “battle,” and “enemy.” They were also more likely to discuss politics, sports, or video games.
But here's the surprising part: Researchers found that on Facebook, women's language is more assertive than men's. "Contrary to expectations, women used slightly more assertive language than men," the study says.
So, there you have it — women may be warmer on Facebook, but they're also more direct and assertive with their language.