Srpski / Arhiva brojeva / TREĆI BROJ / DR MARKO M. ŠKORIĆ, KAI LING LEOW, JINGSHI LU, XIN HUI TAN, GABRIEL YONG CHIA TAN: How Social are Social Media The Relationship between Facebook™ Use and Online Social Capital
ABSTRACT
This study examines the relationship between Facebook use and new online forms of social capital. The findings indicate that young people who are Facebook users are significantly better educated, financially better-off and have a richer stock of traditional, offline social capital. Furthermore, the analyses suggest that for Facebook users, the intensity of use is positively associated with both bridging and bonding forms of online social capital, with the former association being much stronger. The implications of the findings are discussed.
1. INTRODUCTION
The advent of the Internet and proliferation of new media technologies have attracted significant scholarly attention regarding their potential impact on social life [1]. Early research studies found evidence that time spent online had a negative relationship with the levels of involvement in social and civic life, providing support for the time displacement hypothesis [2]. These findings, however, have not been supported by more recent studies, which actually suggested a positive impact of the Internet on social connectedness [3]. Furthermore, the notion of the Internet as an isolating medium ignores its interactive nature and the intense socializing that goes on in the online world [4].
Thus, the real issue at stake is whether online forms of sociability offer viable alternatives to traditional models of social connectedness such as family and friendship ties, civic and community organizations, social clubs, etc. Given the gravity of the evidence documenting the decline of traditional social capital in the United States and elsewhere [5], it is important to examine the paths that may lead to the reinvigoration of social and civic connectedness. It is argued that the Internet could help reverse the decline of traditional social capital by reducing the cost of organizing offline meetings and events, and by promoting completely new forms of sociability characterized by greater convenience and efficiency [6]. Indeed, certain technological affordances make the Internet a particularly suitable technology for the creation and maintenance of social capital. For instance, the provision of reputational information, vast expansion of social networks, suppression of certain sensory information that may impede cooperation (voice, smell, etc.), as well as maintenance of records of previous interactions and names/roles may all promote collective identity and trust among community members [6].
With the above in mind, we explore one particular Internet application – social network sites (SNS). SNS have been described as “networked publics” that support sociability, just as unmediated public spheres do [7]. Some scholars have asserted that SNSs serve to maintain or solidify existing relationships rather than form new online ones [8]; while others suggest that SNSs can expand one’s personal and professional group of acquaintances and widen their social networks [9] [10].
Using the data from a national telephone survey of young Singaporean adults, we attempt to explore how the use of Facebook, a highly popular social network site, relates to the amount of online social capital. Previous studies focusing on U.S. college students have found support for the relationship between Facebook use and traditional [11] [12] as well as online forms of social capital [13]. Still, all of these studies suffer from generalizability problems due to the use of non-representative, convenience samples.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Social capital and the Internet
Putnam [14] defines social capital as the “features of social life – networks, norms and trust – that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives”. Broadly speaking, social capital can be defined as the resources accrued due to relationships among people [15]. Some forms of social capital are mainly exclusive and are associated with closely-knit homogenous groups, bonded by kinship, ethnic, religious or ideological ties. Other forms are more inclusive as they bridge across gender, race, ethnicity, geography, etc., and provide better access to outside assets and information. While bonding social capital provides necessarily social and psychological support and sense of belonging, bridging social capital is characterized by weaker, but more widely diffused networks of reciprocity.
The bridging versus bonding conceptualization of social capital also represents a useful framework for analyzing the patterns of sociability on the Internet. For example, bonding social ties are created online when people interact with their family members, close friends and people from the same ethnic or religious group and these ties promote a strong in-group sense of loyalty while providing emotional support. Thus, the online bonding ties may be reflective of an innate human need for community, which can now be expressed in cyberspace[16].
On the other hand, bridging social capital could be a product of participation in online forums, social networking sites and blogs, where people from diverse backgrounds gather together to discuss and share their views on the topic of common interest. Researchers suggest that, while the Internet may be not be an ideal environment for developing strong, bonding ties, it is quite suitable for the promotion of weaker, cross-cutting bridging ties [17]. Studies have shown that participation in communities established purely within the online sphere is related to an increase in amount of social capital [18].
2.2. Facebook and social capital
boyd and Ellison [19] define social network sites to be “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”. Young people are more likely to be users of SNS compared to older adults, with 75% of Internet users aged 18 to 24 having a profile on a social network site in the US in 2008 [20].
At the time of writing, Facebook is the most popular SNS in the world. According to Internet market research firm comScore [21], the site attracted 132.1 million unique visitors in June 2008, with year-on-year growth in unique visitors quadrupling in all worldwide regions outside the North American market. Incepted in 2005 at Harvard University in the US, Facebook was originally meant only for Harvard students [22], but quickly gained immense popularity. Soon other schools were added to the network, and Facebook expanded its reach to 90 per cent in a good number of US colleges [23].
The variety of activities available to users in the social architecture of Facebook come close to Resnick’s [6] vision of how specific technological affordances may help form productive social relations even more conveniently. For instance, social networks are articulated and negotiated on Facebook via the linking and viewing of profiles [24]. On their individual profiles pages, Facebook users can furnish information about themselves, including personal details and interests, as well as upload albums of online photos, among others. Requests to be added as a Facebook friend, acceptances of these requests, and the subsequent ability to view others’ profiles help reflect existing social networks [25]. In addition, “news feeds” aggregate and inform Facebook users about any changes in the profile pages of their online contacts; the posting of “status updates” allows personal thoughts and activities to be made known to linked friends. Videos clips can also be uploaded or linked from a third-party website; sharing and commenting on these videos help maintain connections with friends, facilitating membership negotiation within social networks [25]. Notably, some studies have shown Facebook to be perceived as a more trustworthy site than other SNSs such as MySpace [26][27] with Facebook members may be more willing to share personally-identifying information about themselves [27].
Other features on Facebook include applications such as “Groups” and “Events”, where users can join as members freely and without restrictions (for public groups), or by invitation at the discretion of the administrators. These groups can be organizations (e.g. student alumni associations) or based on common causes and interests. Members can be informed of gatherings, events of interest and even rallies in the offline sphere via information disseminated on the groups’ profile pages. Other features in these Groups, such as “The Wall” and discussion boards, allow users to post messages related to the group’s topic of interest.
Using a uses and gratifications approach, Joinson [28] identified some of the more important uses of Facebook to users, including keeping in touch with others, the sharing of photographs, as well as the use of Facebook Groups and applications. He also suggests that the ‘social searching’ and surveillance functions – maintaining and reconnecting with the people one knows and keeping up-to-date with what old friends are up to – were the most important to users.
Given the array of applications by which social interactions may be built or maintained via Facebook, a number of studies have demonstrated the association between SNS use and social capital. The intensity of Facebook use has been shown to be positively related to both bridging and bonding social capital, particularly bridging social capital [8]. More specifically, Aubrey, Chattopadhyay and Rill [13] found the use of social networking sites to be positively associated with online bridging and bonding capital, but suggested this did not translate to offline social capital.
Several scholars have demonstrated that individuals use Facebook to manage and reinforce relationships initiated offline, rather form new ones online [8][27][28]. Donath and boyd [24] argue that the technology of SNSs facilitates the cheap and easy maintenance of weak ties between acquaintances. This was supported by a longitudinal study of Facebook users at a US university, which reported an increase in bridging social capital among users over time [11]. Such bridging ties provide the links between unconnected social groups and segments of a network, allowing people the access to information and resources otherwise unavailable within their own social circles – what Granovetter’s early work [29] referred to as the “strength of weak ties”.
2.3. Singapore as a case in point
The Facebook phenomenon is hardly restricted to the US. In Singapore, where the young are among Asia’s most prolific SNS users [30], Facebook has also gained considerable popularity. One estimate cited 533,000 unique Facebook visitors in May 2008 [31] – a remarkable number for a city-state with a population of only 4.8 million [32]. Furthermore, recognising the need to engage Singaporeans through the use of new media, the feedback unit of the government has also set up a Facebook group to facilitate discussion and feedback about governmental policies [33].
2.4. Hypotheses
Based on the extant literature reviewed, we posit the following research question and hypotheses:
RQ1: Are Facebook users different from non-users in terms of socio-economic, media attention and offline social capital variables?
H1: Intensity of Facebook use is positively related to amount of online bridging social capital.
H2: Intensity of Facebook use is positively related to amount of online bonding social capital.
We highlight that the relationship between Facebook use and social capital may not be strictly in the direction proposed; instead the relationship is likely to be mutually-reinforcing and cyclical [34] [6], but examining a cyclical nature of this relationship is beyond the scope of the current study.
3. METHOD
3.1. Design and Sample
The data for this study was obtained through a random digit dialing (RDD) telephone survey of young adults in Singapore aged 18 to 29 years. Interviewers were recruited and trained to conduct this nationwide survey in the period of February 9, 2009 to February 28, 2009. Using the American Association for Public Opinion Research [35] formula RR3, an estimated response rate of 40% was obtained.
After data cleaning, a final sample of 385 completes was compared with statistics from the Singapore Youth Research Network [36] as well as the 2008 Yearbook of Statistics [37]. The mean age of the sample was 21.8 (SD = 3.28); 53.5% were females and median household income was between the range of S$2000 to $3999. The sample was found to reasonably approximate the general population in terms of gender and race. It also reasonably approximated the youth population in terms of household income. However, in terms of education level, higher-educated people (diploma and higher; inclusive of current pursuers) appeared to be slightly over-represented.
In the final sample, 374 (97.1%) respondents were Internet users. Of these, 283 (75.7%) of them use SNSs, with 249 (88.0%) of SNS users having a Facebook account.
3.2. Procedure
A computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) system utilizing RDD was used to conduct the study. All telephone numbers were attempted a maximum of 8 times, with the exception of disconnected or non-residential numbers. Only Singaporeans and Singapore Residents aged 18 to 29 years were qualified to answer the survey. The youngest male/oldest female technique was used to randomly select the participant in a household, should more than one member in the household be qualified.
All interviews were conducted in English, although a Mandarin translation was provided for the introductory paragraph. The justification for conducting the survey only in English is the high English literacy rate for people aged 18 to 29, at over 90%. On average, an interview lasted 25 minutes.
3.3. Measures
3.3.1. Facebook Use
After selecting the respondents who said they used the Internet at least occasionally, they were then asked if they used Facebook (Yes/No). Respondents who were identified as Facebook users were then asked a series of questions based on the Facebook Intensity scale by Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe [8]. Facebook users were first asked to estimate the number of minutes they had spent using Facebook per day in the past week, and the number of Facebook friends they had, based on ranges provided in the response categories. The median amount of time spent on Facebook among users was 31 to 60 minutes a day, while the median number of Facebook friends they had was between 101 and 150.
Next, the scale required respondents to indicate the extent to which they agreed with the following statements on 5-point Likert scales (1 = Strongly Disagree; 5 = Strongly Agree): Facebook is part of my everyday activity; I am proud to tell people I am on Facebook; Facebook has become part of my daily routine; I feel out of touch if I do not log into Facebook for a while; I feel that I am part of the Facebook community; I would be sorry if Facebook shut down. Finally, we supplemented Ellison, et al.’s [8] scale with two additional behavioral items: I read messages posted on Facebook regularly; I post messages on Facebook regularly. All ten items were combined to form a reasonably reliable measure for the intensity of Facebook use (Cronbach’s α = .73).
3.3.2. Measures of Online/Offline Social Capital
Measures of both bridging and bonding social capital were adapted from Williams’ [4] Internet Social Capital scales, where respondents on 5-point Likert scales (1 = Strongly Disagree; 5 = Strongly Agree). Online bridging social capital was measured using the following five items: interacting with people online makes me feel connected to the bigger picture; interacting with people online makes me interested in what people unlike me are thinking; I am willing to spend time to support general online community activities; Interacting with people online makes me want to try new things; Interacting with people online makes me feel like part of a larger community. Cronbach’s α for the online bridging social capital scale was satisfactory at 0.72.
Online bonding social capital was measured using the following six items: There is someone online I can turn to for advice about making very important decisions; The people I interact with online would share their last dollar with me; The people I interact with online would put their reputation on the line for me; I do not know people online well enough to get them to do anything important; The people I interact with online would help me fight an injustice; There are several people online I trust to help solve my problems. Cronbach’s α for the scales was calculated to be .73 for online bonding social capital.
In order to control for offline social capital, we also included separate measures for offline bridging social capital (Cronbach’s α = .77) and offline bonding social capital (Cronbach’s α = .84) by having respondents rate their level of agreement on all the items above with the word “online” changed to “offline” for each item (e.g. interacting with people offline makes me feel connected to the bigger picture; there is someone offline I can turn to for advice about making very important decisions, etc.).
3.3.3. Control Variables
Five media attention questions were asked to assess the amount of attention respondents paid to political issues or public affairs on newspaper. The questions were adapted from Zhang & Chia (2006)’s [38]study on mass media use and civic participation, and consisted of the following: attention paid to international politics; attention paid to international news other than politics; attention paid to local politics; attention paid to local news other than politics; attention paid to editorials and opinion columns.
Four media attention questions were also asked to assess the amount of attention respondents paid to political issues or public affairs on television. These questions were the same as the ones asked about attention paid to political issues or public affairs on newspaper, with the exception of editorials and opinion columns; this is not applicable on television, and was hence not included.
Both measures utilized a 7-point scale, ranging 1 = Little Attention to 7 = Very Close Attention. Cronbach’s α reliability analysis for the scale yielded a value of .79 for attention to politics on newspaper, and .85 for attention to politics on television, suggesting high levels of internal consistency for these scales.
Lastly, a set of standard demographic questions were asked. These included gender, race, highest education level and monthly household income.
4. RESULTS
Table 1
Differences between Facebook users and Non-Users: Demographics, Media Use and Offline Social Capital
Facebook Users | Non-Facebook Users | |||||||
M | SD | n |
| M | SD | N | t | |
Age | 21.39 | 3.08 | 249 | 22.44 | 3.54 | 136 | -2.93** | |
Education Level a | 6.11 | 0.97 | 249 | 5.46 | 1.38 | 136 | 4.94** | |
Income Level b | 2.98 | 1.47 | 249 | 2.57 | 1.42 | 136 | 2.65** | |
TV Attention | 17.27 | 5.19 | 249 | 16.51 | 5.52 | 136 | 1.33 | |
Newspaper Attention | 21.55 | 5.68 | 249 | 20.32 | 5.72 | 136 | 2.03* | |
Offline Bridging Social Capital | 18.14 | 3.04 | 249 | 17.36 | 3.13 | 136 | 2.37* | |
Offline Bonding Social Capital | 22.73 | 3.94 | 249 | 21.04 | 4.31 | 136 | 3.90** | |
Note. The higher the mean value, the greater the attribution.a1= No formal education, 8 = Post-Graduate. b1 = Less than $2,000, 6 = $10,000 and above. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
4.2. Intensity of Facebook use, online bridging and bonding social capital
The following analyses included only 249 respondents who were Facebook users to assess the relationship between intensity of Facebook use, online bridging and bonding social capital, and traditional political participation potential.
A hierarchical regression analysis predicting online bridging social capital with intensity of Facebook use as the predictor was incorporated into Table 2, which included the controls for demographics, media attention and offline social capital variables.
Table 2
Hierarchical Regressions Predicting Online Bridging and Bonding Social Capital from Demographic, Media Attention, Social Capital Variables and Intensity of Facebook Use
Online Bridging Social Capital | Online Bonding Social Capital | |
β | β | |
Demographics | ||
Age | .157* | .055 |
Education | -.164* | -.167* |
Income | -.033 | -.057 |
R2 | .010 | .013 |
Media Use | ||
TV Attention | .141 | .035 |
Newspaper Attention | -.020 | .035 |
R2change | .021 | .004 |
Offline Social Capital | ||
Offline Bridging Social Capital | .105 | -.215** |
Offline Bonding Social Capital | -.007 | .335** |
R2change | .021 | .071** |
Facebook Use | ||
Intensity of Facebook Use | .396** | .241** |
R2 change | .147** | .054** |
Total R2 adj. (%) | 17.2 | 11.4 |
F | 7.446** | 4.999** |
df | 8 | 8 |
N | 249 | 249 |
Note: *p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01. Table shows controls for age, education, monthly household income, television attention, newspapers attention, and offline bridging and bonding social capital.
A similar regression analysis predicting online bonding social capital with intensity of Facebook use as the predictor was also conducted, as shown in Table 2.
Figure 1. The intensity of Facebook use and online social capital
5. DISCUSSION
The findings suggest that Facebook users were generally younger, had a higher socio-economic status and paid more attention to newspapers, which is indicative of a greater stock of knowledge and resources, as well as keen interest in news.
Furthermore, among Facebook users, the intensity of use was positively related to both online bonding and bridging social capital even after the control variables were accounted for. As proposed by several scholars, the strength of the relationship between intensity of Facebook use and online bonding social capital was relatively weaker than the association between intensity of Facebook use and online bridging social capital [8][11] The results indicated that the technological aspects of Facebook, as mentioned earlier, may aid in the formation or maintenance of weak ties online (bridging social capital) by overcoming barriers of communication and enhancing information flow in a manner that traditional media forms cannot easily provide [24][6]. For example, it is likely that Facebook use plays a crucial role in the maintenance of pre-existing weak social ties that were initially established offline.
But, how important are these online bridging ties? We argue that online bridging social capital facilitates information exchange and provides individuals with links to otherwise unconnected social groups and networks. People may now reach out beyond their own social circles [29]. Being part of a larger group in turn generates a sense of belonging, empowerment and security for the individual, regardless of the strength of individual relationship amongst the people in the group. For young people, these bridging ties are of great help when they want to engage in civic, professional or leisurely pursuits, including organizing a student protest or finding a job.
The affordances that Facebook applications offer are, however, less effective in maintaining or creating strong relationships online (bonding social capital). Nevertheless, based on our findings, the potential of SNSs like Facebook in forming or preserving online bonding relationships cannot be underestimated. Indeed, one of the main reasons for people joining Facebook is to share pictures and information about themselves with their close friends and family.
6. CONCLUSIONAuthors
Marko M. Škorić is currently an Assistant Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information,
Kai Ling Leow, Jingshi Lu, Xin Hui Tan and Gabriel Yong Chia Tan are students at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, specializing in communication policy and research.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the Interactive and Digital Media Cluster at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information,