Socioeconomic Differences - MySpace vs. Facebook

A study by the University of California, Berkeley determined there are educational and economic differences between users of social networking sites. The report claims users of MySpace are more likely to come from families with parents who didn’t attend college, and users of the service are more likely to go straight to work out of high school. Facebook is preferred by those who are college educated and define themselves by their extracurricular activities. 

Research: Myspace and Facebook are different class

On Facebook’s user-base among younger people, Boyd writes:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

In contrast:

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. Teens who are really into music or in a band are on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.