Abstract:

Social Networks are becoming very popular in our society. We spend part of our spare time browsing Social Networking Sites (SNSs) like Facebook, Twitter or Whatsapp. Students, which are digital natives are keen on this way of communication practices. Gender and technology, always present controversy, thus in the literature, differences and no-differences between gender and networking behaviours could be found. The aim of the present study was to analyse the students’ attitudes towards SNSs, on a group (n=66) of young students (age=16.16±0.85) participating in an International Comenius Partnership Project, related to the integration of ICTs in education. An on-line questionnaire was surveyed in order to collect data from the students and SNS behaviour. The results indicated that no-differences were found on the average of time spent by students on the SNSs daily (1-2h). However questions like: My social network is part of my everyday activity?, I feel I am part of my social network community?, and I would be sad if my social network shut down? showed significant differences (P<0.05) between gender. Thereby, the girls displayed the highest degree of agreement on these questions. In conclusion, despite of the fact that boys and girls spend the same time on the SNSs, girls present a higher attitude towards SNSs.

Keywords:

Education, gender, social networking, attitudes.