Gaming, Social Media, and Gender in Chinese and Canadian Cultures

The purpose of our study is to investigate gender and culture and their relationship with two types of Internet media use: gaming and social media. This study is part of a survey administered at one Canadian and three Chinese universities. We hypothesized that men would be higher-end gamer’s vis-à-vis women across cultures and that the reverse is likely to be true regarding social media usage. Also we assumed that women would prefer casual when it came to video game genres while men would opt for action and strategy with less violence, although combat-centric games are being favored in some parts of China, as was highlighted in previous studies on cultural differences in gaming. It was also expected that the Canadians would be higher in independence but lower in interdependent self-construal than the Chinese. The findings of this survey were both expected and surprising. Expected was the gender difference in the types of media preferred as well as the specifics within such media, that is, video game genre preferences. Surprising was the high level of gaming, even the noncombat type, among Chinese women and the continued dominance of Facebook. Considerable differences emerged with Hong Kong, often appearing most like the West, and mainland China being the most collectivist on several dimensions. Taiwan seemed to fall in between depending on the measure.