Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Facebook is the MySpace for Old Folks, and Parents


    
     MySpace was the first social network site that I joined.  I heard of it through a friend that lived in California.  When I first became a member there were roughly 30,000 people on there.  I would like to consider myself ahead of the curve in that discovery!  At the time MySpace was great for networking (since I was in a band), and dating.  The site utilized the ideas of C.R.A.P pretty well, and it was easy to navigate, not to mention free! 
     Facebook came along, and I was not a fan.  It seemed most people that had Facebook profiles were students.  At the time I felt out of place, plus I was accustomed to MySpace.  I found Facebook, significantly harder to navigate, and most of the people in my circle didn’t have an account because they were not students.  Somewhere down the road and I can’t account for an exact date, I switched to Facebook. At the beginning of the school year, teens were asking "Are you on MySpace? Yes or No?" At the end of the school year, the question had transformed to "MySpace or Facebook?" Since I came back to college, most of the people were using Facebook.  Utilizing the data from The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online, it does make sense.   
     I still have my MySpace account and check it periodically.  The majority of people in a random search are either African American, or Latino.  This could be the social division that Boyd mentions.  I am not sure if it is the reason I made the switch to Facebook.  In fact it is not the reason.  MySpace has technical issues that make it difficult to cyber stalk.  The website takes forever to load, and they made a bunch of changes to make it more confusing and difficult to navigate.  I’m not sure it has to do with demographics, or social upbringing, but more with Attention Deficit Disorder.

1 comment:

  1. I definitely agree with everything you said in this post. I also had similar feelings and experiences with both Facebook and MySpace among friends and the websites itself. MySpace is much harder to navigate nowadays, and way slower, but previously, I believe that it was less complex than Facebook. MySpace has many technical issues that I believe have also had an impact on the switch to Facebook. The users have significantly changed as well and I think that the technical issues play a big role in the switch, don't you think?. Everyone I know has both accounts on these social networks but Facebook has significantly taken over the attention of the people. I also check my MySpace account from time to time and have noted that all my friends have moved to the more mature website, Facebook. In addition, African Americans and Latinos are the dominate groups in MySpace but also make their mark in Facebook as well. Almost all of my friends are form either of these groups. Overall, I think that there are many contributing factors that are noted differences between the two social networks that impact the demographics, but it is ultimately left to the public to choose their preference.
    What do you think is the major factor that has changed the demographics of these social networks? What do you think is the future for MySpace and Facebook?

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