Kate Swakla, 2016, p.

1
How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
Introduction
I find myself on social media from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed. When I
wake up the first thing I do is reach for my phone and check my notifications, which include:
Texts, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook messages. As Im walking to class Im looking at my
phone and scrolling through my instagram and twitter feeds. Even while Im in class I will look
at my phone and check instagram, twitter, facebook, etc. Whenever I have free time I am
constantly checking out social media. Then the last thing I do before bed is check my phone
again for anything new or something that I may have missed throughout the day on social media.
In this day and age social media seems to be the main thing that people are surrounded by.
Whether its Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. people always seem to be on their phones and
engaged in whats happening online. I find myself wondering why Im constantly on my phone?
Why is anyone constantly on their phones? What is the big deal about social media and why is it
so hard to go without looking at it for a day?
Television is capitalizing on our obsession with social media; one such show is Gossip
Girl. Gossip Girl includes a website called Gossip Girl, and this website puts all of the
characters in the show on blast using social media. Everything is on their social media site:
From their love lives to the extravagant trips they go on an anonymous blogger, gossip girl, tells
it all--literally all their secrets. The show takes place in the upper east side of New York which
anyone could tell you is quite expensive to live in. All but one of the main characters come from

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How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
rich, wealthy, and luxurious families. The one that doesnt happen to come from a trust fund
family happens to be treated differently than the others. Though this is a fictional show, Gossip
Girl does point to some serious underlying issues with regards to socioeconomic status and
social media. Socioeconomic status is an individuals, or the family of the individual, social
class. It is made up of occupation, income, and education. This makes me wonder: Are people
too involved in their social media lives and not involved enough in their actual lives and events
that are happening in the real world? and Does social media have a play in peoples
socioeconomic status?
I will be talking about how people are treated differently due to their socioeconomic
status and what role social media plays in an individuals socioeconomic status.
To address these questions I will compose a study of individuals from different backgrounds and
socioeconomic classes. These individuals will be interviewed for a job and will answer a series
of questions during the interview process. Attached to the interview will be 3 screenshots of
portions of their social media sites including: twitter, instagram, and facebook. Then each
interviewer will pick the individual they seem best fit for the job after reviewing their answers
and looking at portions of their social media. In the end of the study we should see if the
individual either coming from a lower or higher socioeconomic status is preferred and if their
social media pages had anything to do with this decision.
Literature Review

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How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
There are many different factors that come into play when determining someone's
socioeconomic future. Some of these include, environment, family income, parental education,
and occupational status (Bradley, 2002). Going to school is hard enough due to all the work
received, but having to deal with drama and gossip makes it ten times worse. Kids shouldnt
have to worry about getting talked about because of the clothes they have on or the house they
live in; sadly in this age they do. For example, kids that grow up in poorer neighborhoods end up
going to lower quality schools (Lee, p.76). The kids that come from higher level families will
more than likely go to higher educational institutions. This is unfortunate because studies show
that Pre-K has a huge impact on kids future earning potential. Kids who are in Kindergarten and
do poorly on standardized tests tend to be African American and Hispanic and from low-SES
families. The children that seemed to do better were Caucasian and Asian and came from higherSES families (Baker, 2002). Important factors that are linked to SES are material and social
resources (Bradley, 2002). These makes sense because the more material items one has, they
seem to be better off than others. Although there is a gap between social media and
socioeconomic status, one definitely has to do with another. In the observations in Assignment
One Blair is constantly criticizing others based on their clothing and wealth. This shows how
realistic the popular girls are in school (Swakla, 2016). A group of 4th grade popular girls
that came from a high SES were the ones that gossiped more about others from a low SES

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How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
(McDonald, 2007). Having to worry about your SES as an adolescent is a lot to take on and can
cause one to have low self-esteem and can lead up to having health problems.
As far as health issues go, it seems that individuals with a lower level of education have a
higher risk of health issues. We can infer that an individual with a lower level of education
probably has a lower SES. This correlates that having a lower SES has a higher chance of health
problems. Studies have shown that families living under the poverty line with kids have higher
obesity rates, have a higher chance of having ADHD, have shorter life expectancies, are at a
higher chance of having depression, etc (CDC, 2011). Individuals with low SES have a lesser life
expectancy than those with higher SES. According to Williams (2010) an individual's race and
SES plays a valuable role in their life expectancy and health. In 2006 there were 33% of African
American children that were in poverty and 13.6% of white children in poverty (Williams, 2010).
The lack of education and income could play a huge factor in this. Since most families living in
poverty have less than a Bachelors degree they dont make a lot of money, so when they get sick
or someone in their immediate family gets sick they dont have enough money to cover the
medications and doctor visits. This could be why so many people living in poverty have a higher
risk of getting diseases. In 2010, 8% of children under 18 and 22% of adults didnt have any
health insurance coverage at all (CDC, 2011). In Europe there have been many more health
problems due to the obscene migration the past decade. Some mental health risk concerns are a

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How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
higher rate of schizophrenia, suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, access of psychiatric facilities, and
risk of anxiety and depression (Carta, 2005).
Nowadays its getting harder and harder for citizens of lower socioeconomic levels to
reach higher socioeconomic levels. Guy Raz (2011) states that it is now easier surpass economic
standards in Europe and Canada than it is in the U.S. This all goes back to the children of today.
Studies show that in America kids who come from a lower income making family will most
likely stay in that lower income level as adults. However, in Europe the data is surprisingly
different; children dont necessarily follow in their parents footsteps and as such, have a better
chance of climbing the socioeconomic ladder. Other examples of higher socioeconomic success
rates in Europe include provisions for pre-K programs. France, for example, has identified
patterns in which there are higher monthly incomes associated with remaining in pre-K programs
2 years or longer; in ;contrast, remaining in pre-K for 1 year/less/not at all, is associated with a
reduced monthly income (Currier, 2011).
Entering the Conversation
If all men are created equal then why are people being treated differently based on their
wealth and status? Even the little things that people have; such as clothes and food, others are
going to judge and make assumptions. Oh thats generic brand coco puffs, they must be poor.
Shes wearing knockoff vans? No way. So how do we see who gets judged and for what

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How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
reason? Well, if we were to conduct a study showing how people are treated based on their
socioeconomic status we can see how and why people are treated differently.
To conduct this study we could stage a mock job interview and have 2 people in each
trial; 1 would the client going in for the interview and the other person would be the person
conducting the interview, so you would have your interviewee and your interviewer. We would
have 4 different groups of people to analyze and collect data from. Attached to their job
application will be a screenshot of a portion of their page from social media websites such as
twitter, instagram, and facebook. These screenshots from the candidates social media pages will
tell the interviewer more about their personality and who they really are.
In the first mock interview the interviewee it will be someone that comes from a poor
neighborhood, and from a lower class family. The Interviewer is going to be someone that comes
from an upper class family and is wealthy. In the second interview we will have the interviewee
that will come from a higher class and the interviewer will be someone from a lower class. In the
3rd interview both the interviewer and interviewee will be from the lower class and in the 4th
interview both the interviewer and interviewee will be from the higher class.
The 4 groups will be asked the same exact questions and have the same job qualifications
and characteristics. The only differing factors will be how they are dressed, the socioeconomic
background they come from, and what their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages say. We can
observe how each person thats getting interviewed is treated by the interviewer. By asking

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How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
questions and seeing how long each interview lasts, then comparing the winner of each group
with the winner of the others. Did the person from the lower socioeconomic class get picked for
the job over the person from the upper class? Or was the person with the higher socioeconomic
class preferred over the the person from the lower class? When taking factors into play we paired
each person with someone from the opposite class as them, and then we paired two people that
come from the same socioeconomic class.
The questions that would be asked are:
1. Where did you grow up? Were you from a large or small town? Did you
feel safe walking around in your neighborhood in the day/at night?
2. How would you feel about working in an environment that comes from a
rougher side of town? How would you feel working in a wealthier, gated, environment?
3. Do working with people from a different background/SES bother you? Are
you more comfortable/interested in working with people that come from the same
background as you?
4. What type of school did you go to? i.e. magnet, charter, public, private,
etc.
5. What is the most important thing to you?
6. Do you have more name brand named clothes in your closet or off brand?
After collecting all the data and viewing the results of who the interviewer picked in each
of the groups we can compare the results to one another and see if there is a main choice to
which type of person gets preferred for a job. Do people prefer someone from a lower class over
someone from a higher class or vice versa? Then, figure out why people preferred one group

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How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
over the other. After finding out the results to this study we will be able to see which individual
was preferred for the said job and why they were preferred over the other.
Conclusion
Throughout this paper I have talked about how individuals are treated differently from
one another and why. Something that I found interesting while researching this topic was that
people with a lower SES tend to have more mental health problems. The biggest factor I found
was the different socioeconomic status between individuals. It appeared that individuals with a
higher SES seemed to have better and more opportunities as opposed to individuals with a lower
SES.
In the study I proposed in the Entering the Conversation portion of this paper I talked
about how individuals may or may not be more likely to pick someone from a higher ses rather
than a lower ses. By attaching the individual's application with portions of their social media
pages we can see how judgements are made when looking at each social media page. Is this
person a drinker? Do they go out a lot? Are they involved anything? Etc.
This research is important because it shows you how people from different backgrounds
are treated in comparison to others. It not only shows the difference of adults but also shows that
the kids of today are getting treated differently by their peers. There is still more research that
should be done in order for people with a lower SES to get treated the same as people with a
higher SES. Some questions I would have for other continuing this research would be How can

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How Does Socioeconomic Status Determine Our Future?
we equal the playing field for those with a lower SES? and How do people that are at the top
stay at the top? I feel that if the world continues giving people with higher socioeconomic status
more opportunities than others; soon the lower class individuals will be left with no work and
even more health issues such as depression for example. I propose that we need to do something
to help citizens coming from a lower class be able to get the same job opportunities as those from
a higher SES. In order to do this we could start a campaign to make people aware of the issues in
our society with regards to the differing socioeconomic classes. Something needs to be done so
that those individuals coming from a lower SES are still able to have careers and be able to
provide for themselves and their families. Hopefully people will continue to research the
different treatment of others coming from high or low SES and will come up with a way to end
this.

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