This paper focused on examining how Facebook assess and bridges social capital. They also explore ways in which users on Facebook maintain these social capitals. In the end they found it that users of Facebook would benefit for people who have low self-esteem and low life satisfaction. The research method the authors used was a random sample of 800 Michigan State University (MSU) undergraduate students to participate in a study and a survey. Of those 800 who were requested 286 students the online survey and participated in the study. The authors wanted to use this sample size to test their hypothesis:
- Intensity of Facebook use will be positively associated with individuals’ perceived bridging social capital
- Intensity of Facebook use will be positively associated with individuals’ perceived bonding social capital.
- The relationship between intensity of Facebook use and bridging social capital will vary depending on the degree of a person’s self-esteem.
- The relationship between intensity of Facebook use and bridging social capital will vary depending on the degree of a person’s satisfaction with life
- The relationship between intensity of Facebook use and bonding social capital will vary depending on the degree of a person’s self-esteem.
- The relationship between intensity of Facebook use and bonding social capital will vary depending on the degree of a person’s satisfaction with life.
The research outcomes showed that there is a correlation between Facebook usage and social capital. Intensive use of Facebook proved to be a great measure for understanding and predicting social capital accumulation.
“Online interactions do not necessarily remove people from their offline world but may indeed be used to support relationships and keep people in contact, even when life changes move them away from each other. In addition to helping student populations, this use of technology could support a variety of populations, including professional researchers, neighborhood and community members, employees of companies, or others who benefit from maintained ties”
As Facebook has grown over the years and transformed into multiple platforms, I am very curious to see the results from the study again. As most undergraduate college students today have made the change from Facebook to Instagram (which is still owned by Facebook) I am curious to see if those hypotheses still hold true. There are several psychological aspects the authors did not discuss such only focusing solely on one sample size and not analyzing how the metrics on Facebook play a part in the overall relationship between the user and boding social capital. I am curious to see if the inverse of the hypothesis holds true. Social Media, especially Twitter and FB have been researched and proven to show low self-esteem if overused whereas the authors in this paper stated that as their use of Facebook intensive their social capital increased.