Most of us have a blind faith in visualizing internet based social networks as an equalizing platform where all human beings of different social backgrounds get a chance to interact and socialize with each other without any differentiation or bias. However, this may not be entirely true as pointed out by the social media researcher Danah Boyd. She has given quite compelling arguments to highlight her point of view and in this post I would like to analyse her claims. Her arguments focus specifically on the two most prominent social networking sites of US; Facebook and Myspace.
Looking at the business of these social networking sites Facebook is a new kid on the block as compared to Myspace but it has already surpassed Myspace in the number of unique visitors in US. On the other hand this number for Myspace has remained nearly the same instead of going down significantly.
From the research done by Danah Boyd over the teenagers of US she has filtered out various plausible reasons for a teenager to choose one site over other. These include features or functionality, design and usability, perception of safety in usage, or where their friends are concentrated. Along with these she found out an “alarming” factor which is the differentiation based on social categories. Here are a few excerpts from her conversation with teenagers.
Kat (14, Massachusetts): I'm not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever, and Facebook is all ... not all the people that have Facebook are mature, but its supposed to be like, "oh, we're more mature." … MySpace is just old.
Anastasia (17, New York): My school is divided into the "honors kids (I think that is self-explanatory)," the "good not-so-honors kids," "wangstas (they pretend to be tough and black, but when you live in a suburb in Westchester, you can't claim much hood)," the "Latinos/Hispanics (they tend to band together even though they could fit into any other groups)" and the "emo kids (whose lives are allllllways filled with woe)."
We were all in MySpace with our own little social networks, but when Facebook opened its doors to high-schoolers, guess who moved and guess who stayed behind. … The first two groups were the first to go, and then the wangstas split, with half of them on Facebook and the rest on MySpace ... I shifted with the rest of my school to Facebook, and it became the place where the honors kids got together and discussed how they were procrastinating over their next AP English essay.
Based on her study she argues that there is a pattern behind the migration of users from Myspace to Facebook which she calls a modern day “white flight”. In conclusion she says that “Social stratification is pervasive in American society (and around the globe). Social media does not magically eradicate inequality. Rather, it mirrors what is happening in everyday life and makes social divisions visible.”
Looking at the specific case of Facebook and Myspace the statistics (below) show more of a growth in popularity of Facebook over Myspace amongst all classes. This popularity could be attributed to many plausible reasons like a trend towards a new fad. The major difference which we see is in more “white non Hispanic” users and people with high parental education level going for Facebook early on. This may be because Facebook started at Harvard became popular through Ivy League schools and thus early adopters were the ones who had a network with the similar class of people. As the population sample from this survey is first year students at a university this might also bias the results.
Even if we agree with the findings of Danah Boyle for most part it makes common sense that our social classes would structure the way we use social networking sites. This is because users from different backgrounds are looking for different features while logging on to a social networking site. For example it’s obvious to find more college graduates on Linked-in as compared to less educated people. So I believe this its not so alarming to find social classes stratified in social networks as well. For that matter it’s easier to utilize a common platform for sharing views and ideas for different social classes provided by a digital medium as compared to in real life.
In conclusion, the internet based social networking might not be a magical wand which can eradicate the class distinctions and issues related to it but it does give a chance to people from different social strata to interact and share their ideas and opinions making them more tolerable towards each other.
1 comment:
I know Danah's work well. Her analysis of FB and MS is controversial; lots of argument about whether the sites mirror society, or lead it? Determinist, or constructivist? Very hot scholarly topics.
Post a Comment