Wednesday 30 March 2011

85% of women are annoyed by their Facebook friends | ZDNet

85% of women are annoyed by their Facebook friends

By Emil Protalinski | March 30, 2011, 4:01pm PDT

Summary

There’s a fine line between friend and frenemy on Facebook, according to a new survey with 400 female respondents.

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Emil Protalinski

Biography

Emil Protalinski

Emil Protalinski
Emil Protalinski has covered the tech industry for five years for multiple publications, including Neowin for two years and Ars Technica for three years. He has written 1,000s of articles for both, with a particular focus on scrutinizing Microsoft products and services. Recently, Emil has expanded his coverage to non-Microsoft technologies, including the social networking giant Facebook.

85 percent of women say they have been annoyed by their friends on Facebook. A new survey conducted by Eversave, a company that offers daily deals it calls Saves, asked 400 women about their habits on the social network.

The goal was to better understand the impact of social networking on deals. Eversave found that 87 percent of women said they find out about deals by Liking daily deal companies on Facebook and 45 percent learn about savings through their friends’ posts.

The results also uncovered the love-hate relationship women have with Facebook. These bothersome behaviors topped the list:

  • Complaining all the time (63 percent)
  • Sharing unsolicited political views (42 percent)
  • Bragging about seemingly perfect lives (32 percent)

You would think that women would abandon the site if they can’t stand the social blabber that keeps the service buzzing. Despite the occasional annoyances, however, women appreciate Facebook for allowing them to see friends’ photos and videos (91 percent) as well as helping them search and reconnect with long lost friends (76 percent).

The data also uncovered some interesting things about Facebook friendships. While women use Facebook to keep their friends informed about what they are up to (79 percent) as well as share interesting and/or funny links and videos (64 percent), they have little tolerance for friends who use the site to brag or overshare. Survey respondents were asked if they were friends with certain online personalities, and here are the results:

  • The documentarian – they update their status with their every move (65 percent)
  • The drama queen – everything’s a crisis with this friend (61 percent)
  • The proud mama – they think Junior’s every move is newsworthy (57 percent)
  • The incessant liker – they “like” every post (46 percent)
  • The slactivist – don’t they know Facebook can’t cure cancer? (40 percent)
  • The poser – they project an image of life so perfect, and it’s not true (40 percent)

Women (and men) may want to think twice before accepting a friend request. As for the friends that you already have, if you feel uncomfortable unfriending them, remember there are alternatives: you can always hide their updates or limit what content of yours they can see on the site.

“The survey validated our thinking on Facebook’s growing influence on daily deals, but we were surprised by responses that show the love/hate relationship women have with Facebook,” Jere Doyle, CEO of Prospectiv, which owns Eversave, said in a statement.