In the past few days I received a lot of e-mails with links to articles about danah boyd's essay, "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace." The essay discusses class divisions between Facebook users and MySpace users - concluding that the "good" (i.e. wealthy and educated) flock to Facebook, while the "bad" (i.e. working class and not college-bound) are drawn to MySpace. Danah makes relevant points, most importantly that this division stems from the two sites respective histories. Facebook began as a gated community for elite college students, whereas MySpace cut its teeth on flashy design, openness, and city-based entertainment ("urban" carries too much baggage unfortunately).

What I have found interesting, however, are two specific responses to her essay: the BBC's article and Umair from Bubblegeneration's post. Each takes somewhat of an extreme (mis?)reading, but in different directions.

The BBC piece suffers from over simplification:

"The research suggests those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college."

While her essay does state this, it is in the context of tracing the history of Facebook. In fact this point logically follows when one knows that the network began at Harvard then expanded to other elite schools before opening up to all college students. The essay is not so simplistic as to suggest that cold milk has probably been refrigerated. The BBC's summary glosses over the more nuanced (though far from rigorous) discussion of the expression of class in American teenagers.

Umair's response takes a negative view:

"She almost sounds as if she pities Myspace kids. Why the whiff of elitism?"

I'm not sure what he is reading in the essay that pities MySpace users, rather she seems to identify with them over Facebook users. She refers to her labeled "sub-altern" group as having their "heads screwed on tighter" than the "hegemonic teens," and even very explicitly pities the Facebook users for presumably coming from a restrictive, misleading environment. That said, I'm glad that I read Umair's negative reaction before reading danah's essay because I could then go into it with a more critical eye.

My main criticism with the essay lies in the fact that she takes the present state of these networks as static. If we have learned anything in these years of socially networked environments, it is that the sites are in constant flux. Who joins is dependent on the social relationship of one generation of user to another certainly, but it is also possible that this is a negative relationship as much as a positive one. This is all excluding the effect of the social networking site management - danah herself has partially blamed Friendster's management for its eventual demise. Much like Mark Twain described the weather in New England, if you don't like the weather in social networking sites now, wait five minutes.