A classmate of mine from grad school just circulated this paper from June, 2007 by Danah Boyd.
According to her, social networking sites - namely Facebook and MySpace - reflect different demographics of American teenagers:
The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.
MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.
Why? Because of the "elitist" nature of how Facebook was launched (via Harvard).
I've been ranting about how little online social circles look like "real life." But this article makes me want to reconsider my position. Just as we gravitate to different people, places and hobbies in the "real world," so too do we choose our online social forums based on where we feel comfortable.
I thought I joined Facebook simply because it's what my friends were doing. I didn't think about who my friends are (mainly white, college educated and from upper-middle-class homes) when I went about it. Maybe there's more to these online social circles than I've given them credit for lately.
2 comments:
I am totally the archetype of the Facebook kid, and I have the prom king crown to prove it. I only have MySpace to keep in touch with my emo artsy friends. Yup. Perfect.
Don't feel bad, Technorella... I mean, what would the ultimate answer be? MySpace is a site that lets people do it as they want and Facebook has rules, yet neither one is fair...
Thanks, Eddie! Interesting that you've encountered the same experience re: Facebook vs. MySpace as the article suggests.
Facebook is the first (and only) social networking site I belong to (aside from LinkedIn - I think I have like three people in my network there) so I had no clue about the different kinds of people who use each site.
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