A new study on Internet usage in America is shedding light on how different people across the country are using social websites.

The report, prepared by the Pew Research Center, shows that usage of popular social networking sites are divided among race, ethnicity, and socio-economic behavior.

White profile owners appear to gravitate towards Facebook and LinkedIn, while minority profile owners tend towards profiles on MySpace, the report explained.

As with the usage of social networking sites in general, the specific sites on which adult users maintain their profiles also varies by educational attainment.

Among adult profile owners with a high school degree or less, 64 percent have a profile on MySpace, 63 percent have a profile on Facebook and just 3percent have a LinkedIn profile.

Among profile owners with some college experience, Facebook and LinkedIn are much more popular-41 percent have a profile on MySpace, 78 percent have profile on Facebook and 19 percent have LinkedIn profile.

The results mirrored analysis based on household income as well.

Compared with those with incomes $50,000 or more per year, those with annual household incomes of less than$50,000 per year are significantly more likely to have a profile on MySpace (64pct vs. 36pct) and much likely to have a profile on LinkedIn (6pct vs. 22pct).

The proportion of high? and low?income profile owners with a profile on Facebook is similar-71pct of profile owners earning less than $50,000 per year have a profile on Facebook, compared with 77pct of those earning more than $50,000 per year.

Usage of different social networking sites also varies by gender and race. Among adult profile owners, men (18pct) are more likely than women (10pct) to maintain a profile on LinkedIn, while women (78pct) are more likely than men (68pct) to have a profile on Facebook.

The report, released on Wednesday, relied on Interviews of 2,253 adults.

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