Danah Boyd has an impressive background in terms of the places she has worked and the amount of research she has been able to put out. Her blog and publications can be found at her site http://www.danah.org/ . Recently, I read her article White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook. Having grown up in suburbia/urban Los Angeles, the article struck true on a number of issues. Danah explains the exodus from MySpace to Facebook, and the race/class issues implied by the migration. She displays and describes how MySpace had first been popular for all teens, and why the first youth began to leave the site and emigrate to Facebook. What these teens left behind was a social map of the segregation that was in plain-sight at their high schools. I remember my personal high school experience. Mexicans would kick it at the M (for Mexican) wing. The White’s would kick it on “the hill”. The African-American’s at the gym. The Asians in the own wing etc. etc. Being Latino, I was one of the last to migrate to Facebook, and only migrated to the site because one of my mentors had urged me to claiming that MySpace was for “cholos and cholas”. I remember my White friends telling me about Facebook, but never really put any thought into leaving MySpace until an authority figure in my life asked me to. Today I have neither a Facebook or a MySpace, and my life has been much better because I can now focus on my studies (Facebook was my preferred tool of procrastination). However, after reading this article, I also thought about my current University experience and wondered if it has felt racially segregated. Yes and no. However, for the truth, all one has to do is to walk into Benson (Cafeteria) and take into account “who kicks-it with who”, or look at Facebook and see who talks to who. Peers, what do you think about our campus?
Social Networks as a Map of Face-to-Face Public Networking: The Insights of Danah Boyd
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Personally even tough I hate to admit it our campus does seem to be racially segregated at times. Because of this I have made it a purpose to not be the one to racially segregate myself. I myself am asian and have seen the group of asians who group together by race (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese…etc). Because of this I have not joined this group but have befriended simply anyone who I come into contact with. So far I have been accepted by different groups of people and when I look at who my closest friends are I seemed to have collected people from all over the world. Because of this I do not believe that their truly is “racial segregation” at this school but more of the fact that people feel uncomfortable or timid about interacting with other groups, but when they do I would be surprised if they were not meet with kindness and hospitality.