“`html
A significant number of female scientists are remaining quiet online—and this may be detrimental to their careers.
A recent study from the University of Michigan reveals that women are approximately 28% less inclined to share their scientific research on X (formerly Twitter)—a seemingly trivial online choice that could substantially affect their career progression, acknowledgment, and income.
The research accounted for essential factors such as field of study, institutional association, and social media activity, yet a substantial gender gap persisted. Surprisingly, this disparity remains evident even in fields where gender equity is more pronounced and explicit bias is assumed to be lower, the researchers note.
Even more remarkably: The gap expands as women advance in their careers.
Who are the scientists least inclined to advocate for their findings? High-achieving women from prestigious institutions who publish in elite journals—the very academics who stand to benefit the most from greater exposure.
“This issue extends beyond just tweets. It’s about who gains visibility, recognition, and acclaim in the scientific community,” stated study co-author Daniel Romero, an associate professor of information, complex systems, and electrical engineering and computer science.
The gender gap amplifies as performance and status increase, being most pronounced for productive women from top-tier institutions publishing in high-impact journals.
Romero and his team analyzed scholarly self-promotion over six years, examining 23 million tweets concerning 2.8 million research articles authored by 3.5 million scientists.
The results raised alarms regarding the prevailing norms in academic social media, which often reward traditionally masculine approaches to self-presentation—potentially discouraging women from participating altogether. The researchers urged universities, funding bodies, and hiring committees to consider the unseen costs associated with reliance on engagement metrics.
“As visibility metrics, such as citations and media coverage, significantly influence hiring and promotional decisions, acknowledging that these metrics might be shaped by disparities in self-promotion can motivate institutions to create strategies aimed at mitigating the barriers that lead to these inconsistencies,” explained study co-author Misha Teplitskiy, U-M associate professor of information.
The study has been published in the latest edition of Nature Communications. Additional co-authors include former U-M doctoral candidate Hao Peng, presently at City University of Hong Kong, and Emőke-Ágnes Horvát from Northwestern University.
“`