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[Via: le monde]¨
Just a quick link to an interesting study from danah boyd about class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

I clearly don’t have the language to comfortably talk about what’s going on, but I think that this issue is important and needs to be considered. I feel as though the implications are huge. Marketers have already figured this out – they know who to market to where. Policy creators have figured this out – they know how to control different populations based on where they are networking. Have social workers figured it out? Or educators? What does it mean that our culture of fear has further divided a generation? What does it mean that, in a society where we can’t talk about class, we can see it play out online? And what does it mean in a digital world where no one’s supposed to know you’re a dog, we can guess your class background based on the tools you use?

And what about people bloggin about new technologies?
Are we all from the same “social classes” or only from the same “object oriented classes”?

Ahmet

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