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

[nativebuddha]

Yes, maybe to some degree class differentials have lessened. However,
if we look at just the PEW Parents & Teens 2004 survey, we find that,
indeed, 87% (N=1,100) of teens sampled are online. 89% of those online
use e-mail, and 84% use the web to look at movie, music, etc. type pop
cult stuff.

 However, 63% are more likely to use a phone to communicate with their
friends, 24% IM and 5% e-mail (That would mean 5% of the 87% who use
e-mail).

As for demographics--economics is not covered. PEW looks at sex, age,
education, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, and geographic
region (Northeast, Midwest, West and South).

There's nothing in there to evenly remotely account for class
divisions (not even salary of parents).

So, while a lot of teens may have tried e-mail, we still have no clear
picture of class. We need more data.

My point is in the Facebook v. MySpace comparision, are we seeing an
intra- or inter-class difference.

-robert




On 6/29/07, Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt at indiana.edu> wrote:
> Robert, I have no doubt that there are class distinctions between teens
> with and without email addresses.  However, I can tell you for personal
> experience that the number of teens without email addresses is closing
> quickly, specifically in English speaking countries.
>
> When I began "studying" teens online in the late 1990's, I would tell
> anyone who asked me questions about my work, that I did not study
> average teens.  I was, then, studying upper middle and upper class
> teens whose families had the resources for home computers and broadband
> or at least a dedicated phone line to support the computer.  While this
> class distinction didn't hold true in all individual cases it was it
> was true often enough.
>
> Now I would have to say I study "average teens" in that most teens, in
> developed countries, have at least some access to the internet on a
> weekly basis (see PEW studies for U.S. stats and Sonia Livingstone -
> and colleagues - work for U.K. stats).  With the move from public
> synchronous environments (chatrooms) to public asynchronous ones
> (blogs, and SNS - Web 2.0) many more teens have enough access to update
> their sites regularly, if not daily.
>
> As for untangling class on the internet, I think in looking at
> distinctions between MySpace and Facebook one must filter the class
> issues eyond who has access to the internet.  If access to Facebook
> were still limited to college/university email address holders then the
> question of class and ethnic distinctions between the sites would be
> rhetorical at best.  The real issue is access to higher
> education...Facebook would then, and possibly still is, only be
> reflective of a larger societal issue.  Would it be useful, overall, to
> compare membership of say a major U.S. university fraternity and the
> Moose or Elks Clubs in the U.S.?  Possibly but the larger question
> would be, what does the distinction tell us...is access to the
> organizations limited by design (as Facebook was for several years) or
> are other factors limiting access?
>
> I don't have a problem with the line of thought or of the questions I
> see being used in this thread.  My concern is again that we don't draw
> "net" distinctions as though they are independent of terrestrial world
> variables.  Utopians and dystopians can be fun...but only for a little
> while.
>
> As a side note, I recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's most
> recent book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking."  In it
> Gladwell gives an interesting and relevant example of the unseen
> limitations that kept women out of, or kept the numbers of women low
> in, major orchestras.  The limitation was not the quality of women's
> musicianship, though some said that initially, nor was it a series of
> "women need not apply" rules, though those implications existed as
> well.  Rather it was the existence of biases within the orchestra
> community that were put into play unconsciously when conductors saw a
> woman play, the visual of a woman playing her musical instrument drew
> out unconscious biases that then framed the review of the audition.
> When audition processes were changed and applicants played from behind
> an opaque screen, more women were hired and now gender breakdown is
> nearly 50/50.
>
> 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 nativebuddha <nativebuddha at gmail.com>:
>
> > Maybe this has already been said, but I find the framing by class
> > problematic on a basic level--we are already focusing only on a
> > certain "level" of class we we look at Facebook and MySpace users.
> >
> >
> > On 6/29/07, Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt at indiana.edu> wrote:
> >
> > "Will the divide hold true now that Facebook allows access to anyone
> > with an email address?"
> >
> > Yes, anyone with an e-mail can have access, but remember that only a
> > certain "level" of class has an e-mail, and has/feels the desire to
> > devote time to play via Facebook and MySpace. (Lois, pardon my lifting
> > of your quote. I know that it was not pertinent for your discussion.
> > It seemed like a good jumping off point for my thoughts.)
> >
> > I'm not statistically sure of this, but I would imagine that there are
> > class distinctions (more inclusive, maybe) between cell phone users
> > (more lower socio-economic groups included) and webpage users.
> >
> > This may seem like a trite over already explored discussion of class
> > and the internet, but I think it still needs to frame the overall
> > discussion of class. That's why Bourdieu's discussion of class and
> > distinction might bear some fruit. Facebook and MySpace class
> > differences are more like differences within a class grouping that
> > already exist "above" other socio-economic distinctions. Again, maybe
> > this is plain to see, but it is worhy of acknowledging if we want to
> > untangle class on the internet.
> >
> > -robert
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