Social Networks and Social Capital

This study provides a view of the role of Facebook on campuses that is very different from those reported in the popular press. Our empirical results contrast with the anecdotal evidence dominating the popular press in that we found social capital benefits associated with certain kinds of Facebook use. Although there are clearly some image management problems experienced by students as reported in the press and the potential for privacy abuses does exist, our findings demonstrate a robust connection between Facebook usage and indicators of social capital. In short, Facebook users can benefit from their online practices. The strong linkage between Facebook use and high school connections suggests how online social networks help maintain relations as people move from one offline community to another. It may facilitate the same when students graduate from college, with alumni keeping their school email address and using Facebook to stay in touch with the college community. Such connections could have strong payoffs in terms of jobs, internships, and other opportunities. Colleges may want to explore ways to encourage this sort of usage. Finally, our findings do suggest that participants in bounded online communities – e.g.
where participants have a common offline affiliation, especially one that would lead to opportunities for face-to-face meetings – are doing fundamentally different things than those reported in the early virtual community literature. They are using the online channel less to meet new people than to intensify and solidify relationships that started offline. This has important theoretical implications for theories of computer-mediated communication and social networks.