How do people use Facebook features to manage social capital?

We investigate how people use specific Facebook features to manage social capital.The frequent use of Like was positively associated with bonding social capital.The frequent use of Comment was negatively associated with bonding social capital.The frequent use of Wall was positively associated with bridging social capital. The goal of this study is to examine and understand the relationship between the utilization of Facebook features and two types of social capital: bonding and bridging. An online survey was conducted using a college sample (n=256). The results show that, with bonding social capital, the frequent use of Like feature was positively associated whereas that of Comment was negatively associated. With bridging social capital, the frequent use of Wall was positively associated. The results also show that the preference for Wall, Friend, Comment, News Feed, Like, Message, Photo, and Chat was positively associated with both bonding and bridging social capital. On the other hand, the preference for Status and Group was positively associated only with bridging social capital. Limitations of this study and the implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

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