Women dominate mobile social networking scene

According to data released earlier this week by Nielsen Interactive, women are far more likely than men to use their mobile devices to "friend" and "tweet" others.

Over half (55%) of mobile social networkers were found to be women - not teens, who are more likely to use their devices to text. In fact, teenagers and college students combined account for less mobile social network traffic than their parents.

And it's not women from the younger end of the age scale using their mobiles to socialize. The largest segment (36%) consists of 35 to 54 year olds followed by those aged 25 to 34 (34%).

Women don't just use social networks for keeping in touch. A recent survey by PopCap Games found the average social gamer is female and 43 years old.

I don't think it should surprise anyone that women are dominating the social networking space. After all, by nature and conditioning, more women than men thrive on the sort of engagement and interaction that social networks provide.

comScore's latest figures show the use of mobile devices to access social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter has increased significantly over the last 12 months.

"Social networking remains one of the most popular and fastest-growing behaviors on both the PC-based Internet and the mobile Web," said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile. "Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends, whether by phone, text, email, or, increasingly, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser."

Tags: gender, mobile Internet, mobile marketing, research, social networking