“I’m Well-Adjusted.” “No, I’m Well-Adjusted.”
April 1st, 2009 |
David Gibson at the Complexity and Social Networks Blog hypothesizes about Facebook and (anti) social capital:
I predict that we will eventually want to add something that I am tempted to call anti-social capital, which is a snarky (and imprecise) term for the absence of ties of a certain type, namely those whose main consequence is that you spend a lot of time online communicating with people who, like you, have a lot of time to spend socializing online. It’s not hard to foresee why someone without such connections would fare better at school, in the workplace, and in their family relations than someone with them, other things being equal.
In fact, most studies so far–see Ellison et al. (2007), Steinfield et al. (2008), and Valenzuela et al. (2008)–have reached the opposite conclusion: that Facebook users have higher social capital than non-users, among several other beneficial social and psychological characteristics (e.g., life satisfaction). Tufekci (2008) found a major difference between users and non-users was their attitudes toward social grooming: users enjoyed those types of interactions or at least accepted their usefulness, while non-user attitudes “[ranged] from incredulous to hostile.”
There have, of course, been studies finding negative social or psychological characteristics associated with SNS use, particularly narcissism (e.g., Buffardi & Campbell 2008). But these negative findings, if true, are not incompatible with the positive findings of social capital (I don’t know about you, but socially competent narcissists abound in my circle of acquaintances).
My quibble with Gibson’s formulation is his premise that “you spend a lot of time online communicating with people who, like you, have a lot of time to spend socializing online.” We all spend an obscene amount of time engaging in technologically-mediated interactions (8.5 hours per day, according to this recent study), regardless of age. If we don’t have time for those activities, we make time, and if we don’t spend a lot of time online, it’s because we’re staring at a different screen.
My question is, if we all spend hours each day staring at our screens, what type of screens will those with high social capital prefer? Those that provide the most interactive potential, like cell phone and computer screens. Meanwhile, those with low social capital will eschew SNSs, use their computers for non-interactive ends, or prefer other mediated activities that require no direct interaction (e.g., watching television).
Tufekci’s research supports this perspective, as he found that there was no difference in the amount of time spent on the Internet between SNS users and non-users, but the ways in which they used the Internet varied significantly. Both groups were users of the “instrumental” Internet, performing practical non-interactive tasks such as shopping or research, but only SNS users participated heavily in the “expressive” Internet, which includes e-mailing, instant messaging, blogging, and reading others’ blogs. SNSs are just one of the ways that people with high social capital leverage our gizmos to interact with others.
That’s why I find it kind of silly when people prophecy that technologically-mediated interaction means the death of the face-to-face interaction. The people who spend the most time interacting with others via screens are also the ones who spend the most time talking your ear off in person. As long as we keep being in each other’s physical presence, those with high social capital will keep talking–to our face and through screens–while those with low social capital won’t.
