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Students into networking
New research from Northwestern University finds that college students’ choice of social networking sites -- including Facebook, MySpace and Xanga -- related to their race, ethnicity and parents’ education.
“That race, ethnicity and the education level of one’s parents can predict which social network sites a student selects suggests there’s less intermingling of users from varying backgrounds on these sites than previously believed,” says Eszter Hargittai, author of “Whose Space” Differences Among Users and Non-Users of Social Network Sites.”
That study, now in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, finds that Facebook is the social networking site of choice for white students, that Hispanic students prefer MySpace and that Asian and Asian-American students are least likely to use MySpace.
While avid users of Facebook, Asian and Asian-American students were found to use the less popular social network sites Xanga and Friendster more than students from other ethnic groups. It found no statistically significant SNS choices for black students.
The study did find statistical relevance between parental schooling and SNS preference.
“There seems to be a positive relationship between years of parental schooling and Facebook and Xanga use, and a negative one between years of parental education and MySpace use,” says Hargittai, assistant professor of communication studies and sociology at Northwestern University and faculty associate at the Institute for Policy Research.
Students whose parents have a college degree are significantly more likely to use Facebook than those whose parents have some college experience but no degree.
MySpace users, on the other hand, are more likely to have parents with less than a high school education than those whose parents had some college experience.
Hargittai surveyed 1,060 freshmen from the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC). UIC has been ranked in various magazines among the nation’s top 10 universities in regard to student ethnic diversity.
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