Social Networking And Class Warfare.(Facebook versus MySpace websites)

Byline: Steven Levy

For young people, the burning question of our time is "Facebook or MySpace?"

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 Berkeley researcher Danah Boyd: it's a matter of social class.

A few weeks ago, Boyd--who has done extensive ethnographic work on online behavior, posted an essay sharing her (admittedly nonscientific) findings after months of interviews, field observations and profile analysis. Generally, she contended, "The goody-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, gangstas and minorities.

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 ...