This morning I came across an article on Forbes.com about the socioeconomic distinctions between the Facebook and MySpace communities.
The article referenced an essay written by researcher Danah Boyd. As Boyd states at the outset of her essay, her conclusions were drawn from informal research: she spoke with less than a hundred teens from seven states.
The Forbes article doesn't encapsulate most of Boyd's points, so I highly recommend reading her essay (it's short). While she admits that her points and thoughts are not fully developed, I think there is some interesting stuff there. And apparently, her thoughts have created a bit of a stir.
While I'm skeptical of some of her statements (an appreciation of Facebook's design is a class issue? College-bound kids "desperately want in" to Facebook? Really?), I think there is something to her contention that social networking sites could be helping maintain class divisions. Until recently, Facebook was exclusive to college students, which was offensive to me (I was excluded for being too old! Damn them!)
Actually, I really didn't care at all. I had no interest in either site until I found that 1) some people I knew in high school have MySpace pages and I couldn't defeat the urge to stalk them and 2) my law school class started a group on Facebook so I joined.
I definitely think Facebook is much more sophisticated and easier to use than MySpace. It has a cleaner design and is less of a hassle to deal with. I found my high school-age cousin on Facebook, but none of my friends are on it yet and probably won't be. It's a good communication tool - a nicely-designed message board - but will I try to connect with my friends via Facebook? Of course not - who has time? That's what this blog is for... or better yet: why I have a telephone.
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