Study: Facebook, MySpace Draw Different Classes of U.S. Teens

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 29, 2007 - 9:56am.

London - U.S. teenagers who visit online social network Facebook are more likely to be Caucasian, come from wealthy homes and be "popular" kids, while more MySpace users are from minority groups, get jobs right out of high school and are "socially ostracized," according to a study from a UC Berkeley PhD student, the BBC Online reported.

"Social networks are strongly connected to geography, race, and religion; these are also huge factors in lifestyle divisions and thus 'class'," wrote Danah Boyd, author of the study.

Facebook users "are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities," Boyd writes, while "MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers."

Although Facebook has gradually opened its service to anyone, one reason for the disparity could be the fact that service originated as an online version of the "facebook" commonly given to incoming college freshmen that includes the names and photos of their classmates.

Published in DMW Daily, June 29, 2007

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Comments

This broad generalization

Submitted by drdon (not verified) on June 29, 2007 - 12:07pm.

This broad generalization does not offer any useful or worthy information. The real life of Facebook and MySpace (among others) are the communities within them. These communities are as varied as the population in general and are typically made up of people who know each other in the real world.

Facebook

Submitted by Angela Lee (not verified) on June 29, 2007 - 1:07pm.

Interesting. I didn't know that "...Facebook are more likely to be Caucasian, come from wealthy homes and be "popular" kids, while more MySpace users are from minority groups, get jobs right out of high school and are "socially ostracized,..." I know that they have different target market. Facebook has more mature users, while myspace has younger users (mostly teenager)

Duh

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on July 1, 2007 - 4:33pm.

Although Facebook has gradually opened its service to anyone, one reason for the disparity could be the fact that service originated as an online version of the "facebook" commonly given to incoming college freshmen that includes the names and photos of their classmates. Duh? Why wouldn't this be the only factor? Facebook was touted as a college social network.