Men Three Times More Likely to Be Monitored on Facebook

Young men are almost three times more likely than women of the same age to have their Facebook activity monitored, according to a study conducted over three and a half months by Bitdefender® , the award-winning provider of innovative antivirus solutions.

The number of 25 to 34 year-old men whose girlfriends or wives install a monitoring app on their social network accounts is as much as triple the number of women monitored by their partners, according to Bitdefender research on 1,605 volunteers. Women’s monitoring diminishes as their partners grow older (35 to 44). Though, it still remains twice as frequent as that of men keeping an eye on women of the same age.

“Jealousy is a strong emotional trigger, and this appears to make women more curious than men when it comes to their loved one’s activity within online social networks,” said Bitdefender Chief Security Strategist Catalin Cosoi. “In today’s digitalized world, online socialization and its very high toll on fidelity are considered very powerful stress sources for a young couple.”

The Bitdefender research also shows American and British women are more likely to monitor their partners’ Facebook activity. More than 67 per cent of US and UK user accounts participating in the study belonged to men. Germany comes second, with 66 per cent men monitored on Facebook, as opposed to the 44 per cent German women. Some 60 per cent of Spanish and French men are also supervised online.