A Cross-Cultural Examination of Student Attitudes and Gender Differences in Facebook Profile Content

This paper examines cultural and gender differences in student reports of the likelihood that they would post various types of information on their Facebook profiles and their attitudes regarding non-students accessing their profiles. Significant gender and country differences were found. In general, U.S. students were more likely than German students to report they would post extreme information. Males in both countries (U.S. and Germany) were more likely than females to self-promote and be extreme in the information they would post and less concerned if employers viewed their profiles. Both U.S. and German students reported several items they would likely post on their profiles, but did not want employers to see. Implications of these results and recommendations for future research are also discussed.