Digital mobile phone memory from a gender perspective

Abstract work Nadtochiy V The study is designed to answer the question: how do young men and women perceive and present, keep and systematize the visual images of self, regarding the gender and relationship, in the digitalized mobile devices. The study present constructivism approach to gender and is based on the research of media consumer typology (by Davydov and by Ilyin), and also on the research of mobile photo gallery as a means of saving family memories (by Reading). The systematic study of self-presentation through time and identity change is based on a research ‘The Present of the Past: Dialogues With Memory Over Time’ (by Josselson). The general approach to memory capacity and peculiarities in men and women is explored from the study ‘Memory for emotional and neutral information: Gender and individual differences in emotional sensitivity’ (by Bloise and Johnson)The basic understanding of the consumer conceptualizing the process of making and keeping memories is taken from the work about visual competence (by Marion Muller and by Luc Pauwels). The study shows the gender differences between male and female approach to taking pictures with the gender-related meaning. There is a significant difference in the visual competence that is a much higher in a women group of the respondents. The women are supposingly more likely to deal with the visual information on gender as they pay more attention to various types of self presentation in the new media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, vk.com etc). Changes in their own look and style, autoportraits (selfies) at entertaining events, everyday routine interrupted by something pleasant and humorous are the most popular motifs of the pictures young women make with their mobile devices. While young men tend to pay more attention to the activities such as adventures at hiking, travel experience, having bought new practical things.Tags the users put on their mobile devices pictures also vary significantly depending on the gender of the respondents. The young women are a lot more imaginative, while young men can basically provide tags like ‘work’, ‘friends’, ‘food’ and so forth. This shows the differences in visual competence as well as the ways of storing the visual data, because young women put more pictures on the Net, thus systematically tagging them.To conclude with, the consumption of the visual data, as well as the producing of the gender-related information is different in young men and young women, with latter paying more attention to detail and making more space for creativity and self-exploration.