Facebook and Myspace highlight teen class division?

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 27 June 2007 12:27

Opinion and Analysis

Needless to say, there are plenty of college students and school kids from upper socio-economic groups that use MySpace. And while Facebook, because of its Harvard roots, is still primarily directed at a student membership, the last time I looked, aside from Ivy League universities, colleges in the US and other western countries were filled with students from a wide range of backgrounds - certainly not just goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids.

The further that I read into Ms Boyd's essay, the stronger was the impression that she identified more closely with the "subaltern teens", while displaying a not so covert antipathy toward the "hegemonic teens". The underlying message appears to be kids from well-heeled backgrounds are spoiled, sheltered, pampered and lazy, while "working class" MySpace kids are victims of oppression, often inflicted upon them by their "ruling class" Facebook peers:

"The division around Myspace and Facebook is just another way in which technology is mirroring societal values. Embedded in that is a challenge to a lot of our assumptions about who does what. The "good" kids are doing more "bad" things than we are willing to acknowledge (because they're the pride and joy of upwardly mobile parents). And, guess what? They're doing those same bad things online and offline. At the same time, the language and style of the "bad" kids offends most upwardly mobile adults. We see this offline as well. I've always been fascinated watching adults walk to the other side of the street when a group of black kids sporting hip-hop style approach. The aesthetics alone offend and most privileged folks project the worst ideas onto any who don that style. When I see a divide like this, I worry because it reproduced the idea that the "good" kids are good and that Facebook participation is good.

"People often ask me if I'm worried about teens today. The answer is yes, but it's not because of social network sites. With the hegemonic teens, I'm very worried about the stress that they're under, the lack of mobility and healthy opportunities for play and socialization, and the hyper-scheduling and surveillance. I'm worried about their unrealistic expectations for becoming rich and famous, their lack of work ethic after being pampered for so long, and the lack of opportunities that many of them have to even be economically stable let alone better off than their parents. I'm worried about how locking teens indoors coupled with a fast food/junk food advertising machine has resulted in a decrease in health levels across the board which will just get messy as they are increasingly unable to afford health insurance. When it comes to ostracized teens, I'm worried about the reasons why society has ostracized them and how they will react to ongoing criticism from hegemonic peers. I cringe every time I hear of another Columbine, another Virgina Tech, another site of horror when an outcast teen lashes back at the hegemonic values of society."

Ms Boyd's obsession with what she calls the "hegemonic values of society" spills over into the members of the US military's use of social networks which she believes mirrors the class divide of schools. According to Ms Boyd, Facebook is popular with officers, while Myspace is naturally the domain of enlisted soldiers. She goes on to openly air her political allegiances while theorizing about why use of Myspace has been recently banned by the military while Facebook has not:

"Myspace is the primary way that young soldiers communicate with their peers. When I first started tracking soldiers' Myspace profiles, I had to take a long deep breath. Many of them were extremely pro-war, pro-guns, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, pro-killing, and xenophobic as hell. Over the last year, I've watched more and more profiles emerge from soldiers who aren't quite sure what they are doing in Iraq. I don't have the data to confirm whether or not a significant shift has occurred but it was one of those observations that just made me think. And then the ban happened. I can't help but wonder if part of the goal is to cut off communication between current soldiers and the group that the military hopes to recruit. Many young soldiers' profiles aren't public so it's not about making a bad public impression. That said, young soldiers tend to have reasonably large networks because they tend to accept friend requests of anyone that they knew back home which means that they're connecting to almost everyone from their high school. Many of these familiar strangers write comments supporting them. But what happens if the soldiers start to question why they're in Iraq? And if this is witnessed by high school students from working class communities who the Army intends to recruit?"

Aside from its apparent lack of objectivity, Ms Boyd's essay is an absorbing read and raises some interesting questions. It's a pity the future PhD appears to have been unable to divorce herself from her own preconceived notions to present a more scientifically valid commentary about the membership dynamics of social networks.