After reading the articles related to social capital and SNS, all of the authors of the article share a common interest with this certain topic. The general idea of SNS and social capital is to bring people together that share either a common ground or have the same ideas as their friends and/or followers. Norris stated that “Bridging social capital refers to social networks that bring people together of different sorts and bonding in social capital brings together people of a similar sort” (Norris, 2004). In my opinion this just lays out how Norris felt how people should interact online and what the goal of social networking is all about. When people use SNS it can affect how social capital is structured for individuals who enjoy SNS. Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe share the same ideas on SNS, but they are primarily focused on one SNS which is Facebook. How we interact online shows positive correlations of bringing people together and having a social bond. Social networking gives people more of an open field to explore new and existing friends, family, co-workers, and colleagues. It also helps us keep with information that goes on in the world and sometimes our own neighborhoods. My experience with SNS usually it to keep in contact with friends and family. and it keeps me in the loop about information I may have not heard about or gives me more of a clearer picture about something I knew nothing about. Social capital just helps us create more of a fun environment to explore groups and have the same interests as yourself and others. When people create chat room groups or certain groups for people who have a certain interest, it brings about how social capital is used online.
16 thoughts on “Blog 11”
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I think that it is good that you point out that Social networking gives people more of an open field to explore new friends , family, and coworkers. You can stay well connected to what your family is doing, especially if you do not see them every day. As you said it keeps people bonded.
Yes social capitol keeps us bonded on a common interest that we all might share. Family and friends definitely should have some sort of contact with you whether it is text or SNS. I do not always talk to family and friends via text but we may feel a certain way about a topic and we start tweeting and leaving posts on each others pages. It may not be a “HI” type of response or greet but we do speak to each other in ways of SNS.
I do think that social capitol is much more than a fun environment. Especially with the bridging capitol, people can find new jobs and new opportunities through social media sites. It’s really neat to see how technology has improved our lives and opened the doors to many new things!
Absolutely agree. It does give people like graduating college students and entrepreneurs an advantage to finding perspective careers and opportunists. It can also be fun and not just all about business.
I agree with you that if certain group with common interest would have beneficial interactions. They might support each other, maintain strong relationships , share information and ideas and this is how social capital develop online.
It’s interesting that you say you learn new things on Facebook. I learn things on Twitter because I use it like a news site, following professional reporters. There job is to keep people informed. But the only things I learn on Facebook are that Omar had killer eggs for breakfast and Hilary’s baby is taking nap. What’s worse, I barely know Omar or Hilary.
Tim,
I’ve had a similar experience to you lately but I think it has more to do with people on Facebook sharing their day to day activities and photos while Twitter seems to be more of a micro-blogging outlet for news. Also, I follow a lot of “tastemakers” on Twitter that funnel news and other interest pieces to that site so the news is more topical than personal. Its nice to have platforms serve different purposes for me that being redundant.
Tim I totally see where you are coming from,and sometimes I have similar reactions to Facebook, although I have also reduced my Facebook use because of their stupid interface changes and stupid policies….but I digress.
I do think the people that I connect with are different, as are the expectations. Because on Twitter people don’t have to approve your request to follow, it seems much easier to follow strangers or people you barely know, whereas I would feel extremely odd sending a friend request to a stranger on Facebook. Case in point: when I was at a conference in late March, I followed several new people who were also live-tweeting the conference, one of whom was on a panel with me, another on a panel with somebody I knew. I actually met and talked with both of these people, but I would never really consider looking to add them on Facebook. I don’t really want to know personal stuff about them or their possible babies/dogs/whatevers, I just want to keep up with possibly interesting things they might say that relate to my work.
Sometime the venn diagrams of ‘people who are interesting’ and ‘people you have preexisting relationships with’ don’t always overlap so easily.
I agree SNSs does provide an open field to meet new people and states connected. Are you truly bonding and bridging to the true real person or just the perception? It’s so easy to present your self in the way that you want people to perceive you. Is the bond broken if you find out that what you were connecting and communicating with the other person about is a lie like on Catfish?
I think it is mostly sometimes just the perception of who we are and not who we really are. You can be amazing online and horrible in person so image is just about everything in social capitol.
I agree that bridging and bonding is questionable online in SNS’s because people are smart and manipulative. The genuine self is really hard to find in most online profiles “most” not “all”. Personally after this course I am considering writing a personal blog and be less visible on Facebook. I’ll still have it but scale it back. I think a blog is a better online platform for me because it’s more like a journal and less tied to everyone “liking” what you have to say or “re-sharing” your information, you can just release your thoughts for that day or moment.
Interactions used while participating in online sites can be important to a person’s image. If something is done that affects how other people look at another person, people that someone knows offline may never look at their offline friend the same way again. This scenario has happened before, and could easily happen again. SNSs are usually good places to take out someone’s frustration, but once a blog is posted it can’t be changed or taken back. This is why people should take extreme caution when blogging so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, accidental or otherwise.
I agree that in addition to staying in touch with family and friends, SNSs also allow you to become exposed to new information. I always see some new piece of new circulating on Facebook whether it’s a serious/sad news event or something just for entertainment purposes. There are so many uses for SNSs and people can figure out how it best fits in their lives.
Sometimes we cannot always call our loved ones so a simple text, facebook message, pr tweet can break the ice for a lot of miscommunication efforts. There a lot of tools to use SNS and yes it is sometimes mainly used for entertainment but it can be used for personal and business purposes as well.
“Bridging social capital refers to social networks that bring people together of different sorts and bonding in social capital brings together people of a similar sort” (Norris, 2004). It is nteresting because in social media you can befriend people who are nothing life yourself, but are friends from high school. But now you have the opportunity to meet people in groups who have similiar interests as yourself.
I can honestly say that I have friended people on facebook and twitter that I never spoke to in high school. I guess we had common interests and felt a certain way about issues and we started to chat. Nothing against them from when we were in high school I just never befriended them. Social media definitely has an impact on making new and old friends.