"Facebook or MySpace - It's a Matter of Class"

This story in Newsweek struck me b/c my own family fits this researcher's work exactly - my niece, who is training to be an aesthetician (someone who gives facials and other spa treatments) likes MySpace and my step son, who is a straight A student and is planning to go to college, prefers Facebook. Below is the link and an excerpt:

Newsweek
Aug. 6, 2007
The Technolgist: Facebook or MySpace? It's a Matter of Class
By Steven Levy

For young people, the burning question of our time is "Facebook or MySpace?" It's the contemporary equivalent to a previous generation's "Paul or John?" or "Betty or Veronica?"

Though there's considerable overlap between the two big social-networking services, only one usually becomes the center of a teen's online social life. Most often the choice is made depending on where your friends are. But what determines whether clusters of friends alight on MySpace or Facebook? A controversial answer comes from Danah Boyd a researcher at the Berkeley school of information: it's a matter of social class.

A few weeks ago, Boyd—who has done extensive ethnographic work on online behavior, blog-posted an essay tentatively sharing her (admittedly nonscientific) findings after months of interviews, field observations and profile analysis. Generally, she contended, "The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes and other 'good' kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college." MySpace is still home for "kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school."
It's also, she says, the preferred digital hangout for outsiders—burnouts, punks, emos, Goths and gangstas. In addition, she says, Hispanic and immigrant teens are more likely to choose MySpace.

Boyd does concede that a lot of this may have to do with the fact that Facebook began at Harvard and spread out from the Ivies. But she believes that there's conscious self-identification involved in the choice. Facebookers are strivers; MySpacers are there in part because they're rejecting the values of preppies, jocks and tools.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20010695/site/newsweek/