Effects Of Social Capital And College Students' Use Of Online Social Network Sites

Concerning the research of social capital,the effect of media use is the key point.SNS could greatly increase the weak ties one could form and maintain,because the technology is well-suited to maintaining such ties cheaply and easily.Researchers have emphasized the importance of Internet-based linkages for the formation of weak ties,which serve as the foundation of social capital.Because online relationships may be supported by technologies like distribution lists,photo directories,and search capabilities.This study examines the relationshipbetween use of WeChat,a popular social media application,and the formation and maintenance of social capital.In addition to assessing bonding and bridging social capital,we explore a dimension of social capital that assesses one's ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community,which we call maintained social capital.We also used trust,life satisfaction and political engagement as the measurements of social capital in this paper.This paper focuses on the college students' use of media and using the questionnaire as the research methods,collecting 201 valid samples.Regression analyses conducted on results from a survey of undergraduate students(N = 201)suggest a strong association between intensive use of WeChat and the six types of social capital.The way of using WeChat also has the correlation with the social capital.Using WeChat moments had the strongest relationship with maintainingsocial capital and political engagement,both online and offline.In addition,age differences,as the significant variable of Demographics,have the correlation with social capital.Finally,Different types of social capital were found to interact with each other but this paper cannot prove the direction of causality.