Stickiness and Social Class

I found Boyd’s essays somewhat disheartening. Could social class really play a role in online interaction? I was enlightened by Boyd’s explanation of the history of FB and MS, explaining how FB originated as a college only site, which itself may imply social class, but it seems that the driving force behind this are the users themselves. People tend to organize themselves into groups and in this case FB and MS seem to be large organizations of generalized perception of class. Is it this social desire to align one’s self with a group or caste that makes social networking sites so “sticky”? Boyd explains that hegemonic kids (good kids) gravitate to FB while the social misfits prefer MS. Boyd indicates that this preference becomes and identity and this need for identity is likely a contributor to the stickiness of the sites. The “bling” design of MS appeals to the “social alternatives” and the more conservative FB appearance helps define the cultural impulses of the more socially conservative. Of course all of this is vast generalization. My opinion is that the stickiness of the sites is due to designers being keenly tuned into their target audience's preferences. Indeed Facebook was designed and created by a college student. As so much of our lives take place online it only makes sense that socializing online is a natural evolution of our online lives.