One of the nice thins about creating a YA Twitter directory, is I now follow (with @readwritetweet) everyone listed there. Today I came across The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online (via Justine Larbalestier, YA author, @JustineLavaworm) on how we socially classify ourselves through MySpace and Facebook. To quote one of the teens in the article (and much of the basis for it):

Kat (14, Mass.): I’m not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever, and Facebook is all… not all the people that have Facebook are mature, but its supposed to be like oh we’re more mature. … MySpace is just old.

The article then proceeds to dig deeper into the race/class aspect.

I can’t argue with the perception as such, Facebook is generally considered “higher class,” but I think it has more to do with function than social class. A sociologist sees stratification. A web designer sees, well, web design.
Sure, MS & FB are social sites, but doesn’t mean they function in a similar way or with the same goals.

Design

Let’s start with FB.

(Read more…)