A couple weeks ago I wrote about how I didn’t think there was much truth to the claim of social stratification between Facebook and MySpace users. Or, more specifically, I argued that to the extent there were differences in the demographics of the users of each site it was a product of structural differences in the rules and management of the sites.

Today a report from the network ratings company Comscore confirms what I was saying. It turns out that since Facebook opened up its membership to the general public instead of restricting it to college students in school “networks,” the demographics of the site have changed.

“Given its roots as a college networking site, Facebook has historically shown very strong skews toward the 18-24 year old age segment,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.  “However, since the decision to open registration to everyone, the site has seen visitors from all age groups flood the site.  As the overall visitation to Facebook continues to grow, the demographic composition of the site will likely more closely resemble that of the total Internet audience.”

The statistics showed:

Once a social networking haven for college students, Facebook’s decision to open registration has helped attract new visitors from outside the 18-24 year old age segment. In fact, the 38-percent increase among 18-24 year olds was the lowest rate of growth of the age segments represented in the study. The most dramatic growth occurred among 25-34 year olds (up 181 percent), while 12-17 year olds grew 149 percent and those age 35 and older grew 98 percent.

I hope that Danah Boyd, the author of the piece I responded to several weeks ago, takes this sort of quantifiable information into account and retracts her claim that there is a widening gulf between the two sites that represents a sort of social networking “digital divide.” Her cry of wolf about a “digital divide” that seems to not really exist takes away attention from more meaningful problems of equal access to technology.

The complete comScore report: “Facebook Sees Flood of New Traffic from Teenagers and Adults”