[Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

[Lois Ann Scheidt]

I should have mentioned that this is also a class issue since early 
adopters are usually upper middle to upper class.

Lois Ann Scheidt

Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana
University, Bloomington IN USA

Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and
IUPUC, Columbus IN USA

Webpage:  http://www.loisscheidt.com
Blog:  http://www.professional-lurker.com


Quoting Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt at indiana.edu>:

> Beyond nationality, preference for IM platforms is also related to when
> the user began using IM's. In other words, lots of old-timers still use
> ICQ for some, if not all, of their conversations because it was the
> platform of choice when they started using peer-to-peer.
>
> It's pretty simple human habit...use what you know and what you learned
> on is the best because it's what you learned to use first.
>
> LOL  How many of us still prefer to listen to the music that was
> popular when we were in high school...no matter how many newer or
> different types of music we enjoy.
>
> Lois Ann Scheidt
>
> Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana
> University, Bloomington IN USA
>
> Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and
> IUPUC, Columbus IN USA
>
> Webpage:  http://www.loisscheidt.com
> Blog:  http://www.professional-lurker.com
>
>
> Quoting Ben Spigel <spigel.1 at osu.edu>:
>
>> In figuring out why some highschools use facebook or myspace, we need
>> to remember that up to a few years (maybe even less) ago, facebook was
>> college only while myspace was anyone. Because of this, more
>> highschoolers were on myspace. Even though facebook is now open to
>> anyone with an e-mail address, the myspace 'seed' was already planted.
>>
>> Another interesting topic relating to this is why different regions or
>> countries use different IM protocols. I grew up in the United States,
>> where everyone used AOL instant messenger, but when I went to the
>> University of Toronto for undergrad, it was an MSN school. However, my
>> middle eastern friends depended on ICQ while Yahoo! was popular among
>> Asian immigrants.
>>
>> Ben Spigel
>> Graduate Student
>> Department of Geography
>> The Ohio State University
>>
>> On 6/24/07, danah boyd <aoir.z3z at danah.org> wrote:
>>> A week ago, folks were talking about class divisions around Facebook
>>> and MySpace use in teen culture.  I was in the middle of writing an
>>> essay about that exact topic(and some folks have heard me speak to
>>> this issue over the last few months) so i didn't want to peep up
>>> until i had written what i could.  I finally gave up and realized
>>> that I didn't have the proper words for talking about this issue so I
>>> wrote an essay with caveats.  I offer it to you to tear to shreds in
>>> the hopes that maybe some good can come out of it.  (I didn't include
>>> the full text here because it's long - i hope the link doesn't
>>> discourage folks from checking it out.)  Feedback is *very* welcome.
>>>
>>> Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
>>> http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> [Barry - i disagree with your view that it's just local clustering
>>> dependent on a random local seed.  I've seen this in too many schools
>>> in too many states in the United States to believe that this isn't
>>> about class.  I can't speak to Canada or Britain or anywhere else.  I
>>> also can't speak to adult usage.  I'm talking solely about high
>>> school teen usage in the US.  If you've got ideas for how to measure
>>> this quantitatively when demarcating class is difficult, i'm all ears.]
>>>
>>>
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>
>
>
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