EVANSTON, Ill., Nov. 20 (UPI) -- College students' choice of online social networking sites is related to race, ethnicity and parents' education, U.S. researchers reported.
The findings contradict the idea that networks such as Facebook, Myspace and Xanga were melting pots of users of different backgrounds, Northwestern University researchers said in a news release.
"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," reported Eszter Hargittai, author of "Whose Space? Differences Among Users and Non-Users of Social Network Sites," published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.
The study found Facebook is the site of choice for white students and Hispanic students prefer MySpace. Asian and Asian-American students are least likely to use MySpace and black students didn't show a statistically significant choice among any sites, the research found.
Students whose parents have a college degree were more likely to use Facebook than those whose parents went to college but had no degree, researchers said. MySpace users were more likely to have parents with less than a high school education than those whose parents had some college coursework.
