By Wong Li Yee
It started with a post in Facebook.
"If I knew you were a guy I would've been more crude."
Why did the person leave such a comment? The comment suggests that the gender of the social media user can affect the responses to the post.
Looi Chee Weng, 21, from majoring in design believe that gender does not play a large role in how he interact with others online. "It depends on whether I know them well. I would still treat people equally. Some guys do tend to treat girls better because they want to find a girlfriend."
"In social media, people pretend a little. When people act out, people might accept or reject the person as society is judgmental," he said.
Ali Anirood, 29, hospitality major prefers to have face-to-face conversations. He treats Facebook users a little differently based on the gender as they will have different conversation topics.
"It's not so much as preferential treatment. Male and female, they both have their strength and weaknesses," he said.
Nur Aliah Binti Mohd Ghazali, 20, majoring in tourism said that in her experience most people who hasn't seen her for a long time will like many of her posts once they befriend her on Facebook. "For those who don't know me will do that often as well, and try to find out more about me through Facebook."
She agreed that people who are interested in her would leave more comments to her posts.
Only knowing what is happening doesn't explain the entirety of why there would be people who have a different attitude towards female social media users online. Counsellor Evan Kok Choon Foong leans towards the opinion that users of social media are influenced by how each of them are brought up.
"It's cultural," he said. "They acted as they would if they were in real life."
He commented that Malaysian males are trained to treat woman gently, and mostly learn it from the father through observation since young. Theoretically, this is known as social learning theory which was first proposed by Albert Bandura. It states that people learn through observing other's behaviour, but also depends on four conditions which are attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.
"No matter whether the communication is done online or offline, user of social media treat the opposite gender the same way they would treat them in real life," he said. He explains that it is because certain social media platform hold us to be accountable for what we say on Facebook, especially when the user is using their own name and has their photo on social media.
Malaysian social media users generally act politely, whether the other user is male or female, especially when they are held accountable by those within their social circles.
It started with a post in Facebook.
"If I knew you were a guy I would've been more crude."
Why did the person leave such a comment? The comment suggests that the gender of the social media user can affect the responses to the post.
Looi Chee Weng, 21, from majoring in design believe that gender does not play a large role in how he interact with others online. "It depends on whether I know them well. I would still treat people equally. Some guys do tend to treat girls better because they want to find a girlfriend."
"In social media, people pretend a little. When people act out, people might accept or reject the person as society is judgmental," he said.
Ali Anirood, 29, hospitality major prefers to have face-to-face conversations. He treats Facebook users a little differently based on the gender as they will have different conversation topics.
"It's not so much as preferential treatment. Male and female, they both have their strength and weaknesses," he said.
Nur Aliah Binti Mohd Ghazali, 20, majoring in tourism said that in her experience most people who hasn't seen her for a long time will like many of her posts once they befriend her on Facebook. "For those who don't know me will do that often as well, and try to find out more about me through Facebook."
She agreed that people who are interested in her would leave more comments to her posts.
Only knowing what is happening doesn't explain the entirety of why there would be people who have a different attitude towards female social media users online. Counsellor Evan Kok Choon Foong leans towards the opinion that users of social media are influenced by how each of them are brought up.
"It's cultural," he said. "They acted as they would if they were in real life."
He commented that Malaysian males are trained to treat woman gently, and mostly learn it from the father through observation since young. Theoretically, this is known as social learning theory which was first proposed by Albert Bandura. It states that people learn through observing other's behaviour, but also depends on four conditions which are attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.
"No matter whether the communication is done online or offline, user of social media treat the opposite gender the same way they would treat them in real life," he said. He explains that it is because certain social media platform hold us to be accountable for what we say on Facebook, especially when the user is using their own name and has their photo on social media.
Malaysian social media users generally act politely, whether the other user is male or female, especially when they are held accountable by those within their social circles.