Introduction
Socioeconomic Status (SES) or economic class is the combination of sociological and economic collective measurement of every family’s or individual’s social and economic position. It also measures how individuals obtain their status through work experience compared to others’, which is based on their education, occupation, and income. These factors are present in our daily lives, to which most of us do not realize that we are portraying our own socioeconomic status through various means, such as expressing our desires, the way we speak, and even the activities that we are interested in. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the different socioeconomic status through evaluation of social media, such as Facebook, from which people portray their expressions. Thus, we argue that based on how people use this form of media, different socioeconomic statuses also represent social inequality in the United States.
Economic Class and Social Media
Facebook is considered the most influential social media site, which people use to update their “status” in terms of where they normally go what they normally eat, and even post the things that purchased. There are different Facebook statuses that are posted every day that range from the simplest “good morning” greeting to posting a brand new sports car. Although social media serves as a common channel for billions of people to express their thoughts and feelings, it also serves as a form socioeconomic measurement.
Personally, my status updates, photos, and likes are illustrations of my socioeconomic status or economic class. I normally hit the “like” button on the posts and updates that I found interesting. For example, I normally post updates about interesting new scientific discoveries, which I believe an expression of my educational status or interest. In addition, I normally post photos of places I have been to show my friends about my interest when it comes to travelling. I find my social media usage similar to what my other friends do. However, it is also possible that other people may see me as a middle-class person based on their own perception of such term.
Comparison of Two Other Facebook Friends
Upon checking my own Facebook page, I observed that my friend (Friend 1) mostly likes topics about general knowledge and science fiction. Thus, have noticed that he normally posts photos whenever he eats in a fine-dining restaurant, which a good portrayal of his economic class. On the other hand, my other Facebook friend (Friend 2) shows her economic class by way of sharing photos about simplicity using quotations of famous writers. Additionally, she normally comments and likes political issues in the United States. This is a representation of a person’s economic class or SES that could also explain her family or occupational background, as her father formerly works for the state government.
In comparison, my friends post different photos and statuses. Based on what I see, my friends belong to different socioeconomic class. My perception is also based on the photos they post as well as the interesting things that they like. The combined socioeconomic status of my friends, including my own socioeconomic class shows that every person has his or her socioeconomic status, which can be measured based on what they portray in their social media accounts.
Furthermore, the different socioeconomic statuses of the people based on how they utilize their social media accounts also represent social inequality among the people in the United States. Social media is a representation of the community’s structural features. This is based upon how people interact with the society according to their interest that includes educational attainment, social interests, and work-related activities (Pollock, 2014).
Moreover, different social features of every person can be seen in Facebook, which portrays their financial status. We can see that there are people or groups of people who needs help in terms of adequate health care, social support, and financial needs. On the other hand, there are individuals who portray abundance when it comes to financial freedom and overall well-being.
It is evident that social inequality can be seen even over the Internet, specifically, through social media, such as Facebook. Apparently, it is not only that financial statuses are visible in Facebook. We can say that these different socioeconomic classes of people can be related to other factors, such as race and gender. It is presumable that race and gender are related to the individual’s socioeconomic outcome based on opportunities that are sometimes unequally distributed to different race and gender. For example, economic opportunity may be given to males, but not to females, and vice versa. There may be companies who hire more whites than blacks, while companies owned by a black person may hire more blacks than white people, and so on. With millions of Facebook users in the United States, these examples can also be seen even in social media.
Financial inequality or wealth gap can be seen based on gender and race. People of different race own less compared to white Americans in terms of wealth (Jaggar, 2008). On the other hand, it was reported that women are less likely to own every asset type that most of men own. Therefore, it is evident that economic inequality is directly related to gender and race issues. However, if we are to evaluate these gaps using Facebook, there could be underlying reasons as to why inequality is evident in the society. It could be due to differences in interests, education, and even financial capacity.
Conclusion
Socioeconomic status or economic classes vary on every individual’s education, financial status, and even social interest. Facebook is one of the medium, where various economic classes can be seen and measured. Relatively, the identification of every individual’s economic class is also a representation of the reality that social inequality is still present in the United States as well as in different parts of the world.
References
Jaggar, K. (2008). The Race and Gender Wealth Gap. Race and Regionalsm, 15(1). Retrieved from http://reimaginerpe.org/node/2815
Pollock, J. C. (2014). Media and Social Inequality: Innovations in Community Structure Research. Routledge.
