• BBC News, Monday, June 25, 2007 11 AM

New research from the University of California-Berkeley shows there's a pronounced class divide between those who frequent the popular social networks Facebook and MySpace. According to the report, Facebook users are more likely to be white, come from wealthier homes and attend college, while MySpace users tend to get jobs after finishing high school instead of continuing their education.

Facebook got its start as a social network for high school and college students. Last fall, founder Michael Zuckerberg and co. open up its 9 million-strong user base to anyone, which means it's likely to see its exclusivity numbers drop.

Report author Dana Boyd, a UC-Berkeley PhD student, said "class" in the U.S. is something directly tied to one's social life -- rather than income. "Social networks are strongly connected to geography, race, and religion; these are also huge factors in lifestyle divisions and thus 'class'," Boyd wrote in the report. "They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities," said the report, whereas "MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school." The report makes no judgments, but advertisers might find the data useful.

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