Racebook?

Danah Boyd argues that race influences if a person chooses to use MySpace or Facebook. While there might be some truth in his argument, he does not acknowledge any other reasons for this correlation.

Boyd commences his article discussing the pressure for teenagers to use a social networking website. This is used as the foundation for his argument because it shows why his argument is relevant. He then goes on to list the differences between MySpace and Facebook, explaining how people with different styles have different preferences. He concludes by stating that race is related to culture, and different cultures prefer different styles and therefore either Facebook or MySpace.

By constructing his article this way, he goes from one point to another and connects them logically. In reality, preferences of style have much less to do with certain racial or ethnic groups preferring MySpace or Facebook. People of different races often live in different areas. In many cities, as the author pointed out, there are communities that consist mostly of black people. In many rural areas, like where I grew up in New Hampshire, nearly everyone is white. There are predominantly Mexican communities in southern California. If one of these communities starts to choose either Facebook or MySpace, the other people in that community will follow because the social networks are about community. It is a similar situation with cell phone service providers. Many offer free texting or minutes to other people in the network, so many communities are mostly one network or another. It does not mean that one race prefers one network or another. Saying that people of different ethnicities have different cultures and that is why many choose mostly Facebook or Myspace is an exaggeration.