Excuse me if I don't genuflect before the new "study" on class differences among the audiences of the different social network, which is getting picked up widely. Danah Boyd's research project, which purports to show that Myspace devotees are poorer and less well educated than users of Facebook, is superficially interesting. The conclusions coincide, satisfyingly, with the presumptions of Facebook users with snobbish disdain for the ghetto design of Myspace pages. And Boyd's essay has the patina of academic credibility, obtained through the liberal use of lingo from critical theory such as "hegemonic" teens — by which I think the author means the cool kids. But, astonishingly, there's a complete lack of survey data to support the thesis. If this Berkeley PhD candidate really had six months for the project, how hard would it be to recruit a few hundred survey respondents? And some of the conclusions are truly pedestrian: the research suggests that Facebook users are more likely to go to college. Well, Mark Zuckerberg's social utility started — duh — as an online facebook for college students, so it's hardly so surprising that it would do well among that demo.

11:37 AM on Mon Jun 25 2007
By Nick Denton
1,759 views
8 comments

Comments

oiseau at 01:09 PM on 06/25/07
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Guys check out these guys from stanford www.glicis.com. Apparently they have built what they claim to be the first web3.0 search engine built around the word exchange markets. There is no typo, it is Word Exchange Markets --online marketplaces where you will make money simply by buying and selling words. Interesting stuff.
doomslayer at 02:11 PM on 06/25/07
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She writes her name in all lowercase and makes "meta-points." Ugh.
Rockwell at 04:34 PM on 06/25/07
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You have to admire her a little bit, turning regurgitated, hyper-obvious, inane talking points into a PhD.

"I want to take a moment to make a meta point here. I have been traipsing through the country talking to teens and I've been seeing this transition for the past 6-9 months but I'm having a hard time putting into words. Americans aren't so good at talking about class and I'm definitely feeling that discomfort. It's sticky, it's uncomfortable, and to top it off, we don't have the language for marking class in a meaningful way. So this piece is intentionally descriptive, but in being so, it's also hugely problematic. I don't have the language to get at what I want to say, but I decided it needed to be said anyhow. I wish I could just put numbers in front of it all and be done with it, but instead, I'm going to face the stickiness and see if I can get my thoughts across. Hopefully it works."

~BARF~
Barce at 05:09 PM on 06/25/07
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I think you guys needed to read the article a bit more carefully. Danah Boyd was not providing a "study" She states in her article that she is acutely aware of the lack of a scientific study or "numbers" to back up her case, but that she definitely had to say something. She also noted lacking a language for what she had to say. Yeah, that makes her a mystic which is something you clearly could've made fun of.

I know you folks at Valleywag are anti-subtlety (and that's why I love you so much), but your article comes across as if you did not read Danah's article at all. Valleywag, bad dog! No bone!
dubdub at 07:05 PM on 06/25/07
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Stanford creates Yahoo and Google, Berkeley creates this. Easy Cal alums, as a Berkeley PhD, I hate being right about this :-)

Paul Fussel would have expressed the main point with fewer words and more wit!
Rockwell at 11:04 PM on 06/25/07
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"My research focuses on how people negotiate a presentation of self to unknown audiences in mediated contexts."

I'm sorry about saying that I admired her a little bit.
superba at 06:41 AM on 06/26/07
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No teenager would tell this self-infatuated dipwad a single true syllable.
dubdub at 09:28 AM on 06/26/07
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@Rockwell: forgiven! I can't even spell "Paul Fussell" correctly...