Instagram is a digital platform of photo and video sharing social networking service owned by Facebook, created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and originally launched on iOS in October 2010. With a total of 849.3 million users all over the world, it certainly makes Instagram the 3rd digital platform with the most users, under Facebook and Snapchat. Broadly speaking, it can indeed be said that women are more active in social media than men. Of course with the high level of activeness of women in social media, especially Instagram, there will be some differences between men and women in terms of language use both in captions and comments. This research was conducted to determine whether there are differences in language use when male and female upload a photo or video. There is a big difference in the use of English language in terms of Instagram posts by male and female
To begin with, the first difference comes from the use of slang words by men and women. Research has shown that men generally outline slang words or even 'coarse' or 'dirty' language. Men are considered to have an emotional level which is a bit lower than women. This causes men to rarely put words directly into the heart and instead consider these words as mere jokes. Men often use harsh words to tease their friends, or even use these words to call their own friends. Indeed, this is not something to be proud or imitated, but that is a fact that is happening on the ground.
In addition, Emoji is a Japanese term for image characters or emoticons used in Japanese electronic messages and Web pages. Originally meant pictograph, the literal word meaning 'picture' + 'letter'. Emoticons are often used as an expression of something, melt the atmosphere that is too rigid, soften criticism, etc. A study from Rice University said, women were twice as likely to use emoticons in text messages than men. In the study, 100 percent of participants used emoticons, but they didn't use them often. Only four percent of all messages contain one or more emoticons. This study also supports previous research that women are more expressive in nonverbal communication. The author found that women use more emoticons than men. But men use more varied emoticons to express themselves.
Moreover, research has shown that women more often use abbreviations both in commenting and as captions on their Instagram post. Words like WDYM (what do you mean), WDYT (what do you think), IYKYK (if you know, you know) they use very often. Research also found a reason behind the use of the word abbreviation. The women felt that using these words would save time and energy.