Many women scientists are choosing to stay silent on social media and it may be hindering their careers.

A new study from the University of Michigan reveals that women are about 28% less likely than men to promote their scientific papers on X (formerly Twitter). While this might seem like a small online habit, it could have significant consequences for career advancement, recognition, and salary.

Even after accounting for factors like research field, institutional affiliation, and social media usage, the researchers still found a persistent and sizable gender gap. Surprisingly, this disparity exists even in fields where gender representation is more balanced and overt bias is thought to be lower.

Perhaps most striking, the gap grows wider as women advance in their careers.

The group least likely to share their research online? High-achieving women at prestigious institutions publishing in top-tier journals the very scientists who stand to benefit the most from greater visibility.

“This isn’t just about sending tweets. It’s about who gets noticed, cited, and celebrated in science,” said study co-author Daniel Romero, associate professor of information, complex systems, and electrical engineering and computer science.

The gap is most pronounced among high-performing women at elite institutions whose papers appear in influential journals.

Romero and his colleagues analyzed six years of scholarly self-promotion, examining 23 million tweets linked to 2.8 million research papers authored by 3.5 million scientists.

The results raise questions about the culture of academic social media, which often favors traditionally masculine styles of self-promotion and may discourage women from engaging. The researchers urge universities, funding bodies, and hiring committees to consider how relying on engagement metrics might disadvantage women.

Because visibility measures like citations and media mentions factor into hiring and promotion decisions, understanding that these metrics can be affected by disparities in self-promotion should prompt institutions to develop ways to reduce the barriers contributing to these differences, said study co-author Misha Teplitskiy, associate professor of information at U-M.

Source: https://www.si.umich.edu/about-umsi/news/fewer-women-amplify-their-scientific-voices-online