Digital Divide

Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

by Danah Boyd

After reading "Living and Learning with New Media", I digged in the issude of 'digital divide' and read an article by Danah Boyd, and the following if my reaction to some of the concerns.
D
anah boyd's article on american class division through facebook and myspace was pretty interesting. As i myself am pretty new to social networking site-'facebook' and have never explored 'myspace', i can't really compare those two in my own words, but i've heard a lot about how immature and un-cool 'myspace' is.
What impressed me was the nature of division- it wasn't just a simple age division between highschoolers and college students. as boys suggests, there is definitely a socio-economic class factor embedded in the division. college-going youth from mainstream middle American background who grew up under parents with higher education, and youth from working-class families who are likely to stay in working-class lifestyle including those who are in the military.
what 'myspace' and 'facebook' attracts two divergent groups of teens is beyond just look and interface of those sites. it seems to me that it's a sense of being with like-mind or like-class peers.
being in a specific sns represents their class, status, ideas, future, etc.
well, i'm not sure if it's something really to lament over, as it has always happened in offline. the division of sns users is a continued pattern and reflection of the reality.
We, human being, are social animals, but honestly we don't socialize just with 'anybody'.
consciously or unconsciously, we 'deliberately' choose everything based on some sort of standards that we set as our status or identity. it can be applied to almost everything we choose- neighborhood, school, commercial brands, food, gym, friends, spouse, bars, work, etc.

What concerns me personally about the 'digital divide' is not who uses 'myspace' or who uses 'facebook'. I'm glad that at least both groups have access and knowledge to manipulate the user-oriented and participatory aspects of 'web 2.0'.
What i'm concerned about digital divide is the division between thosevwho have resources to use it and those who don't in the first place.
For many of us (living in a big city with corresponding lifestyles), having access and knowledge for the internet, web 1.0, web 2.0, web 3.0, etc, is taken for granted. But there're still a lot of people out there who don't or can't have this for themselves and for their children. i think this is troublesome.
and as an aspiring library media specialist, i think this make technology educatoin and digital/media literacy much more crucial than before. if left unattended and neglected, this divide will only grow further and eventually there'll be a great deal of individual and social costs as a result.