Women have always represented strongly in social media, and now it appears that they’re pioneers in the use of these technologies to connect with their friends.

A new study has revealed that women like to use Twitter, Facebook and other social channels to stay in touch with friends and family, and even co-workers, while men still favour the phone.

Internet telecommunications company Rebtel surveyed the communication habits of 2,361 U.S. adults, and found that 68% of women use social media to engage with friends, compared to just 54% of men.

60% of women also used social media to keep in touch with family, while only 42% of the men polled could say the same. A third of women also corresponded with work colleagues through social media, which compared to just over a fifth of men.

“Our findings show that men tend to lag behind women when it comes to communicating with others through social media, which debunks other recent studies that suggest that men are more savvy networkers between the sexes,” said Andreas Bernstrom, Rebtel’s CEO.

Overall, email emerged as the most popular way of communicating with friends, with 83% of respondents connecting in this way, ahead of the phone (74%) and social networks (61%).

(Source: Rebtel.)