goodwriter

From The young and the Digital

S. Craig Watkins is a professor of radio-TV-film at the University of Texas at Austin, and is a leading researcher on the ways young people today use the many forms of social media. His publications include Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (2005) and Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (1998). His most recent research is on the dynamics of online spaces, where young people form communities, create identities, and resist or reinstate the val- ues of the dominant culture. Watkins complements his analysis of social media with fieldwork in what he calls the “digital trenches,” conducting hundreds of surveys and in-depth interviews with young people, teachers, and parents in order to understand the richness and complexity of these online communities.

What follows is an excerpt from Watkins’s 2009 book, The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Any- time, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. In this selection from a chap- ter titled “Digital Gates: How Race and Class Distinctions Are Shaping the Digital World,” Watkins challenges readers to think about the ways class and race distinctions manifest themselves online, even though, as he notes, Americans are not very skilled at discussing these differences. Further, Watkins observes that race is an “‘inconvenient truth’ for evangelists of the social Web” (para. 5), who are often invested in the idea that the Web offers an equal playing field for all participants. Instead, Watkins argues in this piece, online space often reasserts the real-world divides we see in gated communities, and functions as “digital gates.” His close analy- sis of the ways college students describe MySpace versus Facebook should invite you to consider how you and your friends think about—and talk about—those spaces. Watkins blogs at theyoungandthedigital.com, so if you find his work compelling, it is easy—and fitting, given his topic—to stay updated on his latest thoughts.

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I used to have MySpace but got rid of it because it felt too open. You feel safer with a thing like Facebook . . . It doesn’t feel as if you’re vulnerable to the out- side creepy world. It’s just your friends.

— douG, twenty-one-year-old college student

In the summer of 2007, blogger danah boyd posted an informal essay 1 titled “Viewing American Class Divisions through Facebook and MySpace.” Based primarily on her observations of MySpace and Facebook profiles, boyd ponders how class antagonisms influence young people’s use of social-network sites. By her own admission, boyd was uncomfortable with the argument and the sociological vocabulary she was in search of to articulate her main thesis: that the class divisions that shape Ameri- can cultural life off-line are clearly discernible in the communities that form online in MySpace and Facebook. “Americans aren’t so good at talk- ing about class,” she writes, adding, “it’s uncomfortable, and to top it off, we don’t have the language for marking class in a meaningful way.”1 She is right, partially.

Sustaining a serious public conversation about the class cleavages 2 in American life is a constant challenge, but not for the reason usually cited—that Americans rarely if ever think in terms of class. The truth is nearly every facet of our daily lives — the clothes we wear, the foods we eat, the schools we attend, the neighborhoods we live in, and the company we keep — bears the visible marks of social class and the ever-deepening cleav- ages between the economically mobile and the economically vulnerable.

“Facebook kids,” the blogger writes, “come from families who empha- 3 size education and going to college.”2 Users of Facebook, boyd asserts, tend to be white and come, more often than not, from a world of middle-class comfort. Drawing from some of the more familiar social cliques among young people, boyd equates the “preps” and the “jocks” with Facebook. MySpace kids, in contrast, come from the other side of the cultural divide. According to boyd, they are the “kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school.”3 Latino, black, and youth from working-class and immigrant households, she maintains, are more likely to be users of MySpace.

In the end, boyd’s essay is consistent with a concept—the digital 4 divide — that gained momentum as far back as the late 1990s as academic and policy-oriented researchers began to ponder how social inequalities impact engagement with the Internet. Some of the most vigorous cham- pions of all things digital—the social Web, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, user-generated content, and social-network sites—can be intolerant of disapproving analysis. Truth be told, technology enthusiasts pay only scant attention to matters of social inequality. After access to computers and the Internet were widened significantly, the continued gap between the tech- nology rich and the technology poor quickly receded to the background.

Race is a kind of “inconvenient truth” for evangelists of the social 5 Web. Early in the Web’s history, the anonymity of computer-mediated com-

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munication suggested to many commentators that longstanding spheres of social division, discord, and discrimination—most notably race and gender — would be rendered meaningless in the digital world. It was that logic that made the New Yorker cartoon about the dog and the Internet so famous. The cartoon implies that if being a dog on the Internet does not matter, certainly being black, Latino, or female would not matter either. Despite the utopian view that the Web provides a place and a way to escape the social burdens and divisions of the off-line world, this has never been true. All of the optimism notwithstanding, the digital world has never existed in a bubble, insulated from the social tensions and eco- nomic inequalities that are integral to the making and remaking of the social world. Life online has always been intricately though never pre- dictably connected to life off-line. Social inequalities still matter in the physical world. And as we are learning, they also matter in the virtual world. Nowhere is this clearer than in the rise and use of social-network sites.

Right around the time that boyd wrote her essay, my research assistant 6 and I were assessing the data from the surveys and interviews we were col- lecting. . . . the use of social-network sites is the premiere online activity among young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Along with noticing how pervasive the use of social sites is among college stu- dents, we detected something else: a decisive preference for Facebook over MySpace among college students. When we asked college students, “Which social-network site do you visit MOST OFTEN?”—among white students, more than eight out of ten, or 84 percent, preferred Facebook. By contrast, 66 percent of those who identified as Latino preferred Facebook. In our survey Latino students were more likely to name MySpace as their preferred site.

What started out in 2005 and 2006 as a steady move to Facebook 7 among American college students has become, by the time of this writing in 2009, a massive migration and cultural rite of passage. As twenty-two- year-old Sara told us, “In college you are almost expected to use Face- book.” Though many of the young college students we spoke with around this time, in 2007 and 2008, began using MySpace before Facebook, they had either deleted their MySpace profile or seldom bothered to use what at the time was the world’s most populated social-network site. Within months of its debut, MySpace leaped ahead of Friendster, one of the first online social-network sites, to attract a large concentra- tion of American youth. Soon after its launch in 2004, Facebook replaced MySpace as the new digital destination for the college set. By 2007 high school students bound for college were also showing a stronger preference for Facebook.

While identifying emergent themes and trends from our survey, we 8 noticed that the findings from a separate study conducted around the

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same time, in early 2007, parallel some of the results from our study. After surveying 1,060 students, ages eighteen and nineteen, Eszter Hargittai, a professor of communication studies, found that a majority of the stu- dents, four out of five, used Facebook. About one-third of the sample used MySpace frequently. But when Hargittai broke her data down by gen- der, race, and class, a number of interesting results surfaced. Similar to many studies, and as I note above, Hargittai found that women use social- network sites more frequently than men. But Hargittai’s most interesting findings revolve around the racial and class differences her data tracked.

A majority of white students, 83 percent, preferred Facebook, whereas 9 a little more than half, 57 percent, reported using MySpace. Eighty per- cent of the African American students used Facebook, and about 58 per- cent used MySpace. Hargittai reports some significant differences among students of Latino and Asian origins. “Hispanic students,” she writes, “are significantly less likely to use Facebook (60% compared to 75% or more for other groups), whereas they are much more likely than others to use MySpace (73% among Hispanic students compared to 58% or less among all others).”4 Students of Asian origins showed clear differences too. Whereas 84 percent of the Asian students in Hargittai’s sample used Facebook, 39 percent reported using MySpace.

Hargittai’s study also shows pronounced differences across class, 10 which she measures by parents’ level of education. High levels of educa- tion attainment are often associated with higher levels of employment and income. In fact, you can tell a lot about a family’s habits, activities, and life- style based on parental education. Past studies of children and teens’ use

of television and video games, for instance, show a strong correlation with parental education. Children growing up in low-education households tend to watch more television and play more video games than children in households with highly educated parents.5 Hargittai’s study finds similar results. “The most pronounced finding,” Hargittai writes, “is that students whose parents have less than a high school degree are significantly less likely to be on Facebook and are significantly more likely to be MySpace users.”6 A close look at her results reveals that the more schooling parents attain, the less likely their children are to use MySpace.

Both the survey I led and the one conducted by Hargittai confirm that 11 something truly interesting is happening with race, class, and education
as it relates to young people’s engagement with social-network sites. But neither study answers the all-important question: Why does racial identifi- cation appear to influence which sites students prefer?

Fortunately, we were complementing our surveys with in-depth con- 12 versations, going out into the digital trenches to talk directly with young people about their use of social-network sites.

What we learned is quite revealing. 13

Right away, the interviews illuminated the constantly evolving ways teens 14 and young twenty-somethings use the social Web. Talk to them and you

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quickly learn that they harbor intense views, both favorable and unfavor- able, toward social-network sites. Some young people are incredibly pas- sionate about MySpace. “I use it all of the time,” twenty-six-year-old Avani told us. “It’s fun, exciting, and easy to meet people. I think people interact more on MySpace [than Facebook].” Loyalty to Facebook is just as strong. Frances, a twenty-two-year-old communication major, said, “It’s a much simpler site to use.” With assurance, Jonathan declared, “Facebook is for people who already have friends, whereas MySpace is for people who are looking for friends.”

In all of our in-depth conversations we asked each person to use adjec- 15 tives that, in their view, best describe MySpace and Facebook. Over the course of more than two hundred conversations with white college stu- dents, we heard all kinds of words. The preference for Facebook is undeni- able. In Table 13.1 I list the adjectives that they use most often to describe MySpace and Facebook. Notice anything? The language they used to characterize MySpace is strikingly hostile. Words like creepy, crowded, uneducated, and fake reveal a considerable degree of bad feeling toward the MySpace site and community. By comparison, they maintain a largely favorable view of Facebook, consistently describing the platform as trust- worthy, selective, educated, and authentic. “Addictive” was another com- mon word used to describe Facebook. Along with the adjectives, young people offered a variety of stories that explain in colorful detail how they make sense of the digital media landscape and, more specifically, the two most popular social-network sites in the United States.

TaBle 13.1 adjectives college students use to describe myspace and Facebook

MySpace Facebook

Crowded Selective

Trashy Clean

Creepy Trustworthy

Busy Simple

General Public College

Uneducated Educated

Fake Authentic

Open Private

Immature Mature

Predators Stalker-friendly

Crazy Addictive

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After analyzing the in-depth conversations, we drilled the preference 16 among young white collegians for Facebook over MySpace down to two main factors — aesthetics and demographics. Aesthetics refers to the look, style, and manner in which personal profiles are designed and presented. The second factor, demographics, refers to the individuals and communi- ties that tend to use both sites. Aesthetics point to the system features of social sites, while demographics alludes to system users. Together, both factors illuminate the sharp and powerful differences race and class make

in the online communities young people participate in.

Visit MySpace and Facebook and the first thing you will likely notice is that 17 the design, look, and feel of the personal profiles on each site are worlds apart. MySpace’s system features encourage customization and personal- ization, a kind of digital wild style. The color, design, and mood of MySpace pages vary significantly. Twenty-six-year-old Avani said, “With MySpace there’s a lot you can do with HTML.” Facebook profiles, on the other hand, maintain a relatively standard look. Compared to MySpace, the tone and style of Facebook seems antistyle. From the very beginning of its launch, MySpace carefully cultivated a demeanor that is personal, whimsical, and,

at times, oppositional. Facebook, on me other hand, has maintained a rel- atively stable and uniform presentation even as it expands the scope of its services. Though the content — pictures, wall posts, and use of applica- tions—may vary on Facebook, the presentation of it all does not. These two contrasting styles engender strong views from users of social-network sites, especially those in college who believe Facebook is the superior platform.

Gerry, a nineteen-year-old sophomore, told us that “Facebook just 18 looks cleaner. Not now, with all the new applications and stuff, but it still looks cleaner than MySpace and a lot more organized, as opposed to MySpace . . . with all the background and fonts, and things.” In his words, MySpace “feels very cluttered and kind of schizophrenic to look at a page . . .

it really makes your head spin.” Sarah, a twenty-one-year-old communica- tion studies major, agreed. “Oh, MySpace is horrible. It takes forever to download a MySpace page and you never know if you are looking at a real person or not.”

Throughout our conversations with them, college students repeatedly 19 expressed their dislike with the often overzealous design of MySpace pro- files and the time it takes to download them. MySpace, said twenty-one- year-old Matthew, reminds him of the “dark, dark days of the Internet.” When asked to elaborate he said, “I don’t like the fact that the designs of MySpace pages are for the most part dreadful. They remind me of back when I was seven and eight and people had just learned how to create Web pages. And they had flashing texts and bubbles.”

Likewise, twenty-two-year-old Brandon expressed irritation with the 20 customizable features of MySpace.

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“The big difference I suppose is HTML. There’s no HTML writing in 21 Facebook as opposed to MySpace,” Brandon observed. Like many other college students, he believes the ability to write in MySpace undermines the quality of the user experience. “I think it makes Facebook so much better in the sense that you’re never being plagued by someone else’s bad code.”

Initially, the dissatisfaction with the customized profiles on MySpace 22 caught me by surprise. A hallmark feature of the social Web is the ability
to not only read Web-based content, but write content too. In the age of do-it-yourself (DIY) media, the fact that we are both consumers and cre- ators of content redefines the rules of media engagement by redefining the rules of media production and consumption. And yet, it turns out that the customization and personalization of MySpace profiles through creative layouts, music, video, and graphics is a major source of annoyance and cultural friction for many college students.

Nineteen-year-old Shelby was not impressed with MySpace, a social 23 site she believes is filled with phony names, phony profiles, and in her words, “glittery, gaudy-as-shit layouts.” The repeated characterization of MySpace as “trashy,” “messy,” “busy,” and “gaudy” unveils a widespread belief among young collegians that the profiles crafted on the platform are unrefined, unsophisticated, and unappealing. All of this is in sharp con- trast to the generally glowing praise showered on Facebook profiles, which, according to twenty-four-year-old Kevin, “is much better organized and easy to use.” Another young woman described Facebook as “pretty, simple, and classy.”

Beneath the preference for the more uniform interface of Facebook 24 lies a more complex tale about the influence of race, class, and geography
in the digital world. The triumph of Facebook over MySpace across Cam- pus USA is not purely about aesthetic judgments or the desire for a simple and easily navigable platform. Matters of taste, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu reminds us, do not develop in a vacuum but rather in relation to people’s social class position. Bourdieu, widely recognized as a pioneer- ing thinker and theorist in the “sociology of culture,” used the terrain of culture or, more precisely, what we do in our everyday lives, to examine expressions of social inequality. Bourdieu made a career of studying what
he calls the “distinctions—tastes, lifestyle, manners, and values—mem- bers of the middle class diligently practice in order to maintain clear boundaries between themselves and the classes they view as less cultured, sophisticated, and desirable.7 Sociologists following in the tradition of Bourdieu refer to these practices as boundary-maintenance work.

Bourdieu carefully illustrates how the accumulation of middle-class 25 cultural capital — education, and a taste for the high arts and the other pre- sumed finer things of life—does more than serve the psyche of the bour- geois classes; it also enables them to reinforce their position of privilege. Many of the distinctions college students make in relation to social-network

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sites are not merely about taste; they are also about the preservation of social status and privilege.

As we probed deeper into the use of social-network sites, it became 26 increasingly clear that young Facebookers’ abandonment of MySpace is not simply about avoiding “bad code”; it is also about avoiding “bad people.” . . .

Despite all of the hype about how the digital age is changing our lives, it 27 has not changed one essential aspect of human life—who we form our strongest social ties with. Similar to life B.W. — before the Web — our most intimate bonds online tend to be formed with like-minded people. Indeed, the young people we surveyed and spoke with are attracted to online com- munities that connect them to people who are like them in some notable way — age, education, region, race, or class. In order to understand what is happening online, you have to understand what is happening off-line. One place to start understanding what is driving young people toward homo- geneous online communities is a consideration of what author Bill Bishop has tagged the Big Sort, a reference to the geographic transformation of American neighborhoods.

The Big Sort, according to Bishop, began around 1970 as Americans 28 underwent a massive social experiment that changed one of the most basic features of everyday life—where and with whom we live. The change in geography, Bishop maintains, is “really a sorting by lifestyle,” as Ameri- cans now more than ever gravitate toward counties and communities that reflect their values, beliefs, and ways of life. Thinking further about the Big Sort and how it is remapping American neighborhoods, Bishop writes, “We have come to expect living arrangements that don’t challenge our cultural expectations.”8 Many Americans, especially the ones who enjoy a degree of economic mobility, are choosing to live near people who think, live, and look like them.

Social-network sites do not cause social divisions. The young and 29 the digital have grown up in a world in which the geographic sorting by race, lifestyle, and ideological values—a rather extraordinary develop- ment — has become ordinary. Bishop is correct when he writes, “Kids have grown up in neighborhoods of like-mindedness, so homogenous groups are considered normal.”9 The vast majority of the young people we meet
go online to have fun by sharing their lives and communicating with their peers. And yet, the choices they make regarding who they interact with online are not immune to the social forces that are shaping their off-line lives. Like the Big Sort, the online sorting among young Facebook users
is shaped by a general suspicion of difference, a split along lifestyle, and, finally, the wish to reside in communities with like-minded people.

The digital gating practices of young, white college students are especially 30 interesting when you consider how often we hear that race does not mat- ter to Generation Digital. In his 2008 book, The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby

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Report on the Transformation of the American Dream, pollster John Zogby writes that the generation he calls the “First Globals,” Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine, are “the most outward-looking . . . generation in American history.” On the question that has challenged America for more than two centuries—race—Zogby says, “The nation’s youth are leading the way into a more accepting future.”10 From MTV’s embrace of black pop to the selling of hip hop, this generation certainly came of age in a cultural milieu in which racial signifiers were not only visible, but also elaborately marketed entertainment. This generation per- sonally experienced a racial milestone in 2008, the historic presidential election of Barack Obama. Liberals and conservatives alike argued that by embracing Obama’s message of “CHANGE,” young whites provided evidence of a generation no longer burdened by our nation’s racial past. Meanwhile, our conversations with young whites show that some view MySpace and Facebook, in part, through a racially coded lens. Race, it turns out, still matters.

“MySpace,” said nineteen-year-old Thomas, “is on crack. There is too 31 much glitter and music.” Twenty-two-year-old Veronica also drew a con- nection between MySpace and the notorious drug. “My favorite is Face- book because MySpace is absolutely on crack and overwhelming,” she said. The reference to crack, a drug associated primarily with the black urban poor, is certainly not race neutral. Add to this a sentiment like “MySpace is too ghetto,” and the racial marking of the digital world is apparent. Like- wise, the belief that MySpace is sullied with profiles that feature “glittery, gaudy-as-shit layouts” and “too much glitter and music” invoke another racially marked term—bling—a popular slang derived from the larger- than-life fantasies played out in hip-hop songs, videos, and style.

Starting around the early 1990s, hip-hop music, fashion, movies, and 32 marketing campaigns were made as much for young white consumers, especially suburban males, as black and Latino consumers. So, why would
a generation that grew up consuming hip hop be turned off by the “bling aesthetics” that pervade MySpace culture? To answer that question, you have to understand the difference between “old media” (think television) and “new media” (think social-network sites).

Television and social-network sites represent two fundamentally dif- 33 ferent kinds of mediated experiences. Whereas television is about watch- ing and consuming, social-network sites are primarily about doing and sharing. Facebook users share themselves daily through wall posts, news feeds, blogs, photos, gifts, and other activities. This kind of constant con- nectivity establishes varying degrees of community and intimacy. By the time they arrived in college, the late teens and young twenty-somethings we met were a little less concerned with the quantity of their online social networks and more concerned with what the quality of those networks say about them and the people they are associated with. It is one thing for young whites to listen to music inspired by the hood, and something

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entirely different to establish a degree of intimacy with people they believe come from the hood. This is the crucial difference between “old media” and “new media.”

Whereas the use of old media platforms like television maintains 34 distance from black and Latino youth, new media platforms like social- network sites offer a greater possibility for closeness. Back when television was dominant, young whites could consume black style and expressive culture from a distance. Social-network sites afford young whites the opportunity to interact with actual black people. However, by avoiding MySpace, the users of Facebook elect to avoid sharing their lives and expe- riencing a modicum of intimacy with “real” black and Latino youth in the computer-mediated spaces they frequent. Instead of venturing to bridge, some young whites choose instead to bond with each other inside their digital gates.

Social and mobile media may be changing how we connect, but as we move 35 into the digital future, it does not appear to be significantly altering who we connect to.

In one of the first “virtual-field studies” exploring the role of race in 36 computer-mediated social worlds, two social psychologists from North- western University, Paul Eastwick and Wendi Gardner, found evidence of racial bias in the online world There.com.11 The experimenters created two avatars, one with light skin and the other with dark skin. Modeling one of their investigations on a classic “compliance technique” experi- ment called “Face-in-the-Door” condition, Eastwick and Gardner made

a large request of There.com participants that was sure to be refused. It was the response to the second, more moderate request that the research- ers were really interested in. Previous studies found that the moder- ate request usually leads to greater compliance from study participants. It turns out that the participants believe that the requester has made a concession and, thus, are more likely to reciprocate. Researchers believe that the participant’s decision to agree is based on their assessment of the requester.

As expected, Eastwick and Gardner noticed that the more moder- 37 ate request led to greater compliance. But when they examined the responses to the light- and dark-skinned avatars, a statistically significant difference emerged. Among the light-skinned avatars, 20 percent more people said yes to the second request. Among the dark-skinned avatars, only 8 percent more of There.com participants said yes. The research- ers concluded that the social influence of race might have been a factor, though they were unsure of the precise nature of the effect. Did partici- pants respond based on their perception of the avatars’ appearance (skin color) or their perceptions of the person controlling the avatar? Either way, Eastwick and Gardner write, “the virtual world may not prove to be
a perfect utopian getaway from the real world.”12 The racial perceptions

WATkinS From THE young And THE digiTAl 515 and biases we develop in our off-line lives, they conclude, likely creep in

to our online lives.

notes

1. danah boyd, “Viewing American Class Divisions through Facebook and MySpace,” June 24, 2007, www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/06/24/viewing_america.html.

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Eszter Hargittai, “Whose Space? Differences among Users and Non-Users of Social

Network Sites.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13, no. 1 (2007), http:// jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/hargittai.html.

5. Donald F. Roberts et al., Kids & Media & the New Millennium (Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 1999).

6. Hargittai, “Whose Space?”

7. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

8. Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 213.

9. Ibid.
10. John Zogby, The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the Ameri-

can Dream (New York: Random House, 2008), 115.
11. Paul W. Eastwick and Wendi L. Gardner, “Is It a Game? Evidence for Social Influ-

ence in the Virtual World,” Social Influence 4, no. I (January 2009): 18–32. 12. Ibid., 29.

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Reading as a Writer: analyzing Rhetorical Choices

1 On page 509, Watkins includes a table with lists of “Adjectives college stu- dents use to describe MySpace and Facebook.” Watkins could have easily presented this information in paragraph form; what is the effect of pre- senting it as two lists?

2. In the title of the chapter from which this selection is taken, “Digital Gates,” Watkins plays on the ideas of both “gated communities” and the “digital divide.” Look up both of these terms to be sure you understand the history behind them. Discuss how both of these terms help Watkins develop his point about the dynamics he sees in online culture, and in par- ticular in social networking.

Writing as a Reader: entering the Conversation of ideas

1. This chapter begins with an analysis of television screen entertainment, in Neil Postman’s essay, and concludes with Watkins’s analysis of the screen pastime of social networking. Compose an essay that places these authors in conversation to reflect on the similarities and differences you see in these early (1985) and recent (2009) media analyses. What can you con- clude about the direction we are headed? Feel free to draw on specific examples from screen culture to help you make your point.

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2.

Both Watkins and Peggy McIntosh are interested in the many subtle ways assumptions about race and racial identity are built into everyday life. At first, the consequences of these assumptions may seem harmless, but they quickly add up over the course of a day, a week, a college experience, and a lifetime. Write an essay in which you use both authors’ insights to explain the significance you see in the way these assumptions work through every- day interchanges. What conclusions can you draw? Include examples from your own experiences, if you like.