What do the inner-city kids use instead of MySpace?
I reach out to you, the group mind, to help me figure out where the inner-city kids go online. I'm so wrapped up in my own white privilege that I really have no idea.
I'm talking about people in their teens and early twenties. Going on broad stereotypes, I figure that if I want to find the privileged ones, I should look to Facebook. (I just got on Facebook a week ago, but I'm a little old for their demographics.) If I want to find the ones who feel like outsiders, I should look to MySpace. (There's virtually nothing on my MySpace, but again, I'm a bit old.)
However, I've recently heard some numbers (that I don't have in front of me, so I can't give specifics) suggesting that there really aren't as many inner-city young people on MySpace as I would have expected.
I realize that computer ownership isn't exactly ubiquitous, so a lot of those people may not have any online presence at all, but it was still surprising to me. Young people have a burning need to connect with each other, don't they? Wouldn't young people who didn't have an internet connection at home still go use a school computer, library computer, or friend's computer to set up an internet presence of some kind?
So I ask you, is there somewhere online for those inner-city young people, or are they all connecting via pre-paid cellular phones and not through the internet?
I'm talking about people in their teens and early twenties. Going on broad stereotypes, I figure that if I want to find the privileged ones, I should look to Facebook. (I just got on Facebook a week ago, but I'm a little old for their demographics.) If I want to find the ones who feel like outsiders, I should look to MySpace. (There's virtually nothing on my MySpace, but again, I'm a bit old.)
However, I've recently heard some numbers (that I don't have in front of me, so I can't give specifics) suggesting that there really aren't as many inner-city young people on MySpace as I would have expected.
I realize that computer ownership isn't exactly ubiquitous, so a lot of those people may not have any online presence at all, but it was still surprising to me. Young people have a burning need to connect with each other, don't they? Wouldn't young people who didn't have an internet connection at home still go use a school computer, library computer, or friend's computer to set up an internet presence of some kind?
So I ask you, is there somewhere online for those inner-city young people, or are they all connecting via pre-paid cellular phones and not through the internet?