Facebook vs. MySpace

Danah Boyd, a sociologist and researcher in the U.S. who specializes in youth culture and online social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, has written a draft of a research paper about the differences in class between users of Facebook and MySpace.

Facebook, of course, comes off being the more homogenized and academic of the two and thus attracts more mainstream usage. Meanwhile, more of the social outcasts and misfits are, according to this report, hanging out on MySpace.

But what makes this interesting is that design may have played a role in creating these so-called user ‘class’ differences:

The different approaches taken by MySpace and Facebook extend to design as well -- MySpace is much more chaotic and colourful, while Facebook is more clean and austere -- and therefore the ways that the two sites are perceived by their users is different too, Ms. Boyd says:

Teens who use Facebook see MySpace as "gaudy, immature, and "so middle school." They prefer the "clean" look of Facebook, noting that it is more mature and that MySpace is "so lame." What hegemonic teens call gaudy can also be labeled as "glitzy" or "bling" or "fly" (or what my generation would call "phat") by subaltern teens... that "clean" or "modern" look of Facebook is akin to West Elm or Pottery Barn or any poshy Scandinavian design house (that I admit I'm drawn to) while the more flashy look of MySpace resembles the Las Vegas imagery that attracts millions every year.

I suspect that lifestyles have aesthetic values and that these are being reproduced on MySpace and Facebook."

Ms. Boyd has a blog post with comments about the paper here.

Of course, she doesn't explain anything about that pesky zombie infiltration on Facebook.

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