The Wall Street Journal came out with an interesting piece the other day, citing research that says women "who use Twitter several times a day, send or receive 25 emails a day and share two digital pictures via their mobile devices per day, experienced 21% less stress than women who do not use those technologies." Interestingly, no such stress reduction existed for men. Yet at the same time, women also experienced more stress through social media when learning about close friends' pain.
In a group discussion in a recent class at Columbia (entitled "Personal Leadership & Success" - worth checking out the external site), it was mentioned that same-sex friendships between men and women differ largely in the way we connect with each other in hard times. Women want to talk about it, guys offer to buy their friend a beer. This study seems to put some numbers behind our proclivity and need to share. Would be interesting to try and connect the dots further.
- Women Who Tweet and Share Photos Are Less Stressed, Pew Study Finds; WSJ