(2013) Growth or Decline: Changes in Americans’ Social Capital. In N. Lin, Y. C. Fu & C. J. Chen (Eds.), Social Capital and Its Institutional Contingency: A Study of the United States, Taiwan and China (pp. 259-280). London: Routledge. (original) (raw)
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Each generation is born into a social environment characterized by distinctive values about social and family obligations. These values are inconstant and cyclical, shaping each generation’s values, behavior and lifelong attitudes. The Millennial generation is pivotal to America’s legacy of democracy, yet there are conflicting reports about the engagement of Millennials in civic life. Millennials may be wondering why they are bowling alone, even though their Facebook friends say they “like” bowling and even “like” specific bowling alleys on specific evenings. Through the lens of social capital, this paper explores whether Millennials are cultivating social networks that extend beyond their smartphones.
Social Capital in modern society
This paper is a theoretical study that examines the correlation between social capital and Internet use from a sociological perspective. This highly topical subject has been debated both in and outside the sociological world the past few years and there are differing opinions about the Internet's impact on the creation and maintenance of social capital. This study aims to identify the prominent views expressed in the subject and to uncover the various arguments that have been brought into the debate. With the general theory of social capital and networks as the basis, this article then proceeds to show what arguments there are for the views that Internet use will have positive, negative or irrelevant effects on the creation and maintenance of social capital. Finally - with the studied literature as the base – the article presents the authors' conclusions regarding the future of social capital in a world that will be increasingly influenced by modern technology and more specifically - the Internet. It was concluded that the effects of Internet today are predominantly positive and that there are no reasons for them to be any different in the future.
(2018) Structure and returns: toward a refined understanding of Internet use and social capital
Information, Communication & Society, 2018
This study carves out a promising theoretical space to investigate how general and specific Internet use may facilitate various returns of social capital by separating the structural embeddedness of social capital from the returns of social capital. Drawing on a randomly sampled survey of adult residents in a major US city, we examine how general Internet use, interacted with network diversity, contributes to various returns of social capital: bonding and bridging, online and offline. We further unpack general Internet use to specific Internet use and explore their relations with the returns of social capital. The results show that general Internet use is positively related to all the online bonding, online bridging, and offline social capital returns, whereas specific Internet use (i.e., informational, participatory, and recreational) is only positively related to online but not offline returns of social capital. Network diversity moderates the relationship between general Internet use and offline returns of social capital.
(2013) The Implications of Social Capital on the Digital Divides in America
The existing literature is oriented toward examining how Internet access and use may affect social capital. The role of social capital in narrowing the digital divides has been frequently mentioned but few studies have empirically examined how various types of social capital may affect people's access and use of the Internet. Drawing on a two-wave national panel data set, this article aims to fill this gap. Results demonstrate that social capital facilitates Internet access and use. In particular resource-rich bonding social capital helps overcome the digital divides in access, general use, and online communication. Before the Internet can revitalize social capital, there must be the right social capital in place to close the digital divides. Highlighting the relationship between social connectivity and digital connectivity, the findings have important implications for policymakers and practitioners.
Did the Decline in Social Capital
Most popular explanations cannot fully account for the declining trend of U.S. reported well-being during the last thirty years. We test the hypothesis that the relationship between social capital and happiness at the individual level accounts for what is left unexplained by previous research. We provide three main findings. First, several indicators of social capital are significantly correlated with reported happiness. Second, social capital indicators for the period 1975-2004 show a declining trend. Finally, the trend of happiness can be largely accounted for by the increasing trend of income, the increasing trend of reference income and the declining trend of social capital - in particular by the decline of its relational and non-instrumental components.
Political Communication, 2001
This article explores the relationship between Internet use and the individual-level production of social capital. To do so, the authors adopt a motivational perspective to distinguish among types of Internet use when examining the factors predicting civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and life contentment. The predictive power of new media use is then analyzed relative to key demographic, contextual, and traditional media use variables using the 1999 DDB Life Style Study. Although the size of associations is generally small, the data suggest that informational uses of the Internet are positively related to individual differences in the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Analyses within subsamples defined by generational age breaks further suggest that social capital production is related to Internet use among Generation X, while it is tied to television use among Baby Boomers and newspaper use among members of the Civic Generation. The possibility of life cycle and cohort effects is discussed.