viz.

On Monday, the BBC reported on a “six-month research project” that revealed that “MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education” while Facebook users “come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college.” In a Tuesday blog post, Clay Spinuzzi pointed out that the research project in question was not intended to be taken as scholarly research. While it is generally a good idea to take any BBC report on science with a Gibraltar-sized grain of salt, one should ask, why did so many others accept these results (Clay lists SmartMobs and BoingBoing as posting favorable comments)? I think the answer has more than a little to do with the visual aesthetics of the two sites.

Consider these screenshots, one from a Facebook profile and the other from MySpace:

The controlled layout of the Facebook group page is in stark contrast with the MySpace page’s repeating background and awkward grid (and this page isn’t even one of the worst MySpace offenders). I wouldn’t be surprised if the quick acceptace of Facebook and MySpace as being respectively high-brow and low-brow wasn’t in some part affected by differences like this one.