Bridging and Bonding in Social Network Sites_investigating Family Based Capital

7/30/2019 Bridging and Bonding in Social Network Sites_investigating Family Based Capital

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Int. J. Web Based Communities, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2010 231

Copyright 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Bridging and bonding in social network sites investigating family-based capital

Petter Bae Brandtzg*

University of Oslo,

Oslo, Norway

and

SINTEF ICT,

Forskningsvn. 1, 0314 Oslo, Norway

Fax: + 47 22067350

E-mail: [email protected]*Corresponding author

Jan Heim

SINTEF ICT,

Forskningsvn. 1, 0314 Oslo, Norway

Fax: + 47 22067350

E-mail: [email protected]

Birgit Hertzberg Kaare

Department of Media and Communication,University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1093,

Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway

E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: This study explores the relationship between three distinctdimensions of social capital (bridging, peer-bonding and family-bondingcapital) in social network sites (SNSs). We ask what kinds of social relationsare sought by SNS users and whether the usage of new SNSs contributes tofamily bonding. A representative sample of the Norwegian internet populationshows that 25% use SNSs to communicate with family members once a weekor more often, but peer bonding is significantly more frequent (53%). Further,male users are significantly less interested in future family contacts in SNSsthan females. Both online bridging and family bonding differ significantlybetween age groups. Answers to an open-ended question demonstrate a wish tostrengthen relationships with friends and acquaintances in SNSs. Contact withfamily is not reported as a main motivation for using SNSs (1%), while othersocial relations account for 74% of the motivations. However, the results of thestudy indicate that the majority of the respondents experience SNSs as a part oftheir daily communication routines, both to bridge new online contacts and tostrengthen bonds with their existing offline ties.

Keywords: social network sites; SNS; design; social capital; family relations;gender differences.


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232 P.B. Brandtzg et al.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Brandtzg, P.B., Heim, J.

and Kaare, B.H. (2010) Bridging and bonding in social networksites investigating family-based capital, Int. J. Web Based Communities,Vol. 6, No. 3, pp.231253.

Biographical notes: Petter Bae Brandtzg is a Research Scientist at SINTEFICT and a PhD candidate at the University of Oslo in the RECORD project. Hisresearch interests include social computing, user behaviour, social capital andprivacy issues. He received an MS in Psychology at the Norwegian Universityof Science and Technology in 2000. He is a member of ECREA and the ACM.He holds 40 international publications and has recently been Guest Editor forComputers in Human Behavior.

Jan Heim is Chief Scientist at SINTEF. He has previously been a AssociateProfessor and Head of the Department of Psychology at University ofTrondheim. He is at present working on human-computer interaction with a

focus on user requirements and psychological aspects of mediatedcommunication and has done so in various European research projects(Telecommunity, TASC, USER, INUSE, RESPECT, Vis--vis, Eye-2-Eye,CITIZEN MEDIA). He is author or co-author of several international papers.

Birgit Hertzberg Kaare is a Professor of Media Studies at the Department ofMedia and Communication, University of Oslo since 2005 and is a member ofthe graduate program in media studies. She was Professor at the Department ofCulture Studies, University of Oslo, from 19952005. She is teaching children,young people and media on MA-level. She is at present taking part in theinternational research project Mediatized Stories, Mediation Perspectives onDigital Storytelling Among Youth. She holds several publications on childrenand young peoples use of new media.

1 Introduction

Scholarly reviews of new media and everyday family life point out that more research is

needed concerning the impact of media use on family relations (Weatherall and Ramsay,

2006). One of the recent popular social media platforms is the social networking site

(SNS), but none of the previous studies have empirically investigated peoples family

relations in these sites. Recently, a special issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated

Communication (JCMC) published a collection of studies about research on SNS usage

(see Boyd and Ellison, 2007). This issue covers a variety of different topics, but none

looks into family contact, despite an increasing spread of family applications (e.g.,

Facebook includes six family applications, 06 September 2008) and Web 2.0 sites (e.g.Family 2.0) supporting family communication in new ways. The social value or the role

of SNSs in the formation of interpersonal interaction and family contacts in regard to

social capital has yet to be investigated.

According to Putnam (2000, p.19) social capital refers to connections among

individuals social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise

from them.


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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 233

In other words, interaction in SNSs could facilitate a kind of community building

among people in general and family members in particular. But there are many forms of

social capital, and the challenge is to identify those forms. Two important concepts in the

existing literature on social networks, from Granovetter (1973; 1983), might explain the

existence of different forms of social relationships or social ties related to the building of

social capital:

1 Weak ties relate to the concept ofbridging social capital. The term weak ties refers

to the types of relationship that exist between dissimilar individuals and groups or

people who are not close friends or family members (i.e., between acquaintances).

2 Strong ties relate to the concept ofbonding social capital. The term strong ties

refers to pre-existing offline social groups, such as close friends (peer-bonding) and

family members (family-bonding), often associated with an internal sense ofbelonging to a group of similar individuals (see also Ling, 2007; Putnam, 2000).

In this article, we view these forms of social capital as three distinct dimensions of social

capital, since the latter form by Granovetter is sub-divided in to peer-bonding and

family-bonding. We expect in this study that these different forms of social capital

including family bonding also apply to SNSs, just as the writing of letters and having

conversations on the telephone did in the past. It should in addition be noted that SNSs

may play a role different from that described in the early literature on virtual

communities (Ellison et al., 2007). This literature focused on how community

participants were geographically dispersed and less oriented towards local and intimate

social groups (e.g., Wellman and Gulia, 1999; Cummings et al., 2002), and were instead

motivated by meeting new people online. SNSs, on the other hand, do not necessarily

remove people from their offline world but may indeed support offline relationships andkeep people in contact with real-life connections, which might support SNSs as an arena

for bonding with both friends and family.

In this study, we chart what forms of social capital that are present in SNSs in terms

of types of relations sought within SNSs. More specifically, we investigate whether social

contact contributes to the generation of social capital within the family, since there is a

lack of knowledge about this in previous research. We also chart how various dimensions

of bonding and bridging capital differ in regard to age and gender.

Our study may contribute significantly to designers knowledge of what kinds of

social relations should and could be supported within SNSs. Further, the results of the

study provide very useful material for scholars and practitioners who are attempting to

understand social capital and family conditions in a society in which the media are

playing an increasingly important role. The results extend social capital theory andtheories related to computer-mediated communications by providing new knowledge

about how people manage interpersonal interactions and maintain different kinds of

relationship in SNSs, across age and gender.

The next section will give a brief background related to family-based capital and

social capital fostered online, as well as differences related to gender and age.


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2 Background

2.1 Social capital and family

Putnam (2000) suggests in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of

American Community, that social capital has been falling in the US. Putnam found for

instance that over the past 25 years, family dinners are down 33%, and visits from friends

have fallen by 45%. However, an important question was raised by Quan-Haase et al.

(2002): what if Putnam is only measuring old forms of communities and participation?

What if online technologies are the new glue between people, families, and social

networks (e.g., Pruijt, 1997)? It is necessary to bear these issues in mind when studying

the social implications of media usage in general and SNSs in particular.

Since this article is focusing of family-based capital in SNS, we should highlight the

work done by Coleman (1990). According to Coleman, a high level of social capital

emphasises the ability of the family to work toward the childs well-being and the ability

of the family to achieve social support. Putnam (1995) points out that the family is the

most fundamental institution in which social capital is built. Further, the family is

regarded as the first building block in the generation of social capital within the wider

context of society as a whole. Relations within the family foster the development of trust,

which is essential for the formation of all positive outside relationships (e.g Coleman,

1990).

2.2 Social capital and family relations online

There are contradictory findings on whether and how usage of new media increases or

decreases bridging (weak ties) and bonding (strong ties) capital or how social capital,

and in particular family-capital, is fostered online. While bridging social capital or weakties is important for fostering relationships between groups, this might occur at the

expense of the equally important localised capital (Coleman, 1990) or at the expense of

strong ties such as family ties (Nai-Lin Chang, 1997).

Much of the early research on online communities assumed that individuals using

these systems would be connecting with others outside their pre-existing social group or

location, liberating them to form communities around shared interests, as opposed to

shared geography (Wellman et al., 1996), which suggests that online use and SNS use

might occur at the expense of family-based capital. Several researchers have for instance

claimed that internet communication is used to maintain interpersonal relation with

distant others (e.g., Katz and Rice, 2002; Kraut, et al., 2002; Quan-Haase et al., 2002;

Wellman, et al., 2001). But, in a review of literature, Bargh and McKenna (2004), find

that most studies suggest that the use of new media helps to develop both weak ties(bridging) and strong ties (bonding). Similarly, a study of the SNS Facebook has found

that students use the SNS to build both bridging and bonding social capital (Ellison, et al.,

2007). It should be noted, that at the time of the investigation by Ellison and colleagues,

the Facebook community was only in use by college students, and the study was not able

to generalise these findings to other kinds of social relations such as family.

However, some researchers have considered the potential that new media might have

for family communication (e.g., Tapscott, 1998; Rushkoff, 1996). The internet may be


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the new glue that empowers families to keep in contact, but new media might also disrupt

social relations. But Jennings and Wartella (2004) emphasise a general lack of knowledge

about the roles of media in family relationships and family life. For example, Meszaros

(2004), while conducting a systematic review of scholarly family journals in the period

19852003, found only 50 articles that focused on the implications of new media

technologies on families (see also Hughes and Hans, 2001 in Weatherall and Ramsay,

2006). So far, no empirical data are available on how family relations are practiced in

SNSs.

2.3 Social capital age and gender

Another uncharted area is how different age groups relate to family communications in

new media in general. Social capital and differences related to age have rarely been a

focus in previous research. However, one study by Stone (2003) found no systematic or

statistically significant differences in the total size of friendship networks that were

related to age, which suggests that friendships remain an important part of peoples

informal networks, regardless of their age. There are in addition indications of a trend

towards a more peer-centred society in which different generations become segregated

from one another according to their chronological ages (Chudacoff, 1989).

Finally, the literature on social capital has paid little attention to possible gender

differences regarding how females and males nurture diverse social ties (Kilby, 2002). A

study by Padmaja et al. (2006) suggested that men belong to more formal networks that

reflect their employment or occupation status (weak ties) while women have more

informal networks that are centred on family and kin (strong ties). Similarly, a study by

Morrow (2007) found girls explicitly recognising friendship as a source of emotional

support, while boys appear to value their friends for shared activities and sports. Further,Padmaja et al. (2006) suggested that technology development and exchange can build

upon bridging social capital as a means of empowering women. To investigate this

further in relation to SNS usage, both age and gender will be charted in relation to social

capital in this study.

2.4 Research questions

The background presented above highlights a number of ways in which social

relationships with both family and the rest of society might be developed and sustained in

different online environments. We will mainly explore three research questions (RQ) in

regard to SNS usage and social capital:

RQ1: What kind of social relations (in terms of bonding and bridging) are sought

within SNSs?

RQ2: How does social capital sought in SNSs differ in relation to age and gender?

RQ3: How motivated are SNS users to communicate with their family members and

thus contribute to the generation of social capital of the family in SNSs?


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3 Research method

This study uses both qualitative and quantitative data, which was collected in five

surveys. All the surveys took place over a four-week period in March 2007. A total of

5,733 respondents from

1 a sample of users from four SNSs (N = 5233)

2 one representative sample of online users in Norway were examined (N = 500).

Table 1 presents an overview of the study.

We performed a qualitative content analysis of answers to an open-ended question by

members of the four SNSs and statistical analyses of questionnaire responses from the

representative sample (see Table 1).

Table 1 Overview of this study

Sample RQ Method Theory Analysis

Four Norwegian SNSswith a total of 5,233respondents

Mainly RQ1and RQ3

Onlinesurvey,open-endedquestion

Socialcapital

Content analysis of thequestion What is yourmost important reasonfor using the SNS?(N = 4417)

Representative sampleof online users inNorway, 500respondents (ages1274 years), of which174 are SNS users

MainlyRQ2, butalso shedslight onRQ1 andRQ3

Surveyquestionnaire,fixedquestions

Socialcapital

Statistical analysis ofquestionnaire responsesrelated to social contactamong family and friends(N = 500)

3.1 The four SNSs

The four SNSs (N = 5,233) were the following:

1 Underskog.no: mean age 29

2 Nettby.no: mean age 22

3 HamarUngdom.no: mean age 17

4 Biip.no: mean 16.

These SNSs were chosen because, at the time of the investigation, they were the most

popular SNSs in Norway and so might give us a good picture of what typical SNS users

seek regarding relationships. The frequent usage and popularity of these sites aredocumented in a recent report for The Ministry of Government Administration and

Reform in Norway (Brandtzg and Lders, 2008), which provides a detailed overview of

the most popular SNSs in Norway. Nettby.no is the biggest SNS service in Norway with

over 800,000 users, while Biip.no is the most popular among teenagers with 350,000

users. HamarUngdom.no was among the five leading SNSs in Norway until 2007, when

we collected our data, but has since been discontinued. Underskog.no is the most popular

SNS for users over 25 years old (see Brandtzg and Lders, 2008). The four sites chosen

are typical SNSs and are similar to better-known services, such as MySpace and


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Facebook. MySpace and Facebook were not included in the study because they were little

used by Norwegians at the time of the investigation, when the market was still dominated

by national or more locally bounded SNSs.

To collect user data, we used online user surveys distributed by banner

advertisements on all four SNSs sites. This gave us the opportunity to access a very large

number of users while they were actually using the sites. In order to motivate as many

users as possible to respond, participants were entered in a raffle and could win a travel

gift coupon worth US$1750.

This SNS sample had a lower mean age than the representative sample and consisted

of more girls than boys (see Figure 1).

3.2 Measurement

All the participants (5,233) were urged to answer the open-ended question, What is yourmost important reason for using the SNS? Given that SNSs are used primarily for social

contact, we believed that this question would provide valuable information about what

kinds of social relation are sought within them. We also thought that the responses to this

question might give us a good indication of the status of the family in SNSs, because if

communicating with family was a reason for using the SNS, the participants would cite it.

3.3 Representative sample of internet users

The second data collection was aimed at obtaining a representative response to our

research questions. This was done by collecting data from an internet panel. The data was

collected by Norstat (a Nordic market research company that is best known for

specialising in information and data gathering) at the same time as we investigated SNSusers on four different sites, in March 2007.

Figure 1 Distribution of gender inside each SNS and the representative sample in % (see onlineversion for colours)

Distribution of gender in the five samples

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Biip

HamarUn

gdom

Nettb

y

Unde

rsko

g

Rep.Sa

mple

Percentwithineachsample

Male

Female


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Five hundred people participated in this survey (N = 500); 174 of these were SNS users.

The respondents were representative of the Norwegian population in regard to gender,geographical location, and age (1274 years), with a mean age of 41 years. However,

they were not representative with respect to internet usage (because they were all internet

users). This national sample is called Rep. Sample in the following sections.

3.3.1 Measurements of representative sample

We used standard demographic measures of gender and age. In the literature, there is no

agreed upon definition of social capital; nor is there any agreed upon method for

measuring it. The bonding and bridging dimensions that we included in our survey were

assessed by both behavioural questions and attitudinal or subjective questions. Social

contacts were measured in terms of frequency of contact with friends, family, and other

people, and number of friends in the users own profile. Frequency of contact is acommon measure in surveys to reveal peoples level of social capital in terms of bonding

and bridging. Frequency of contact with people with whom the user had different types of

relation in SNSs was measured by asking: when you are using the SNS, who do you

communicate with most often? The respondents could choose among six items, referring

to different types of relation. The scale had six frequency options from (1) neverto (6)

daily (see Tables 2 and 3).

Table 2 Overview of the survey questions on social capital used in this study

Social capital dimension MeanStandarddeviation

Min Max

Family-bonding

Communication in SNS with familymembers

2.44 1.691 1 6

Importance of having more contactwith family members in an SNS in thefuture

2.87 1.450 1 5

Peer bonding

Communication in SNS with friends 3.72 1.879 1 6

Importance of having more contactwith friends in an SNS in the future

3.51 1.372 1 5

Bridging

Communication with colleagues 2.02 1.513 1 6

Importance to have more contact withcolleagues in an SNS in the future

2.38 1.443 1 5

Online bridging

Communication in SNS with peopleyou have just met on the internet andnot have met in real life

3.04 1.900 1 6

Importance of having more contactwith people you have just met on theinternet and have not met in real life

2.80 1.408 1 5


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We further attempted to measure how the SNS-users evaluated the importance of future

contacts sought in SNSs, using the same scale (see Tables 2 and 4). This was done in

order to focus on differences related to bonding and bridging social capital, mainly in

relation to gender and age.

All the questions were formulated on the basis of a discussion with several other

researchers in collaboration with a developer from the Nettby SNS, and by conducting a

pilot investigation on ten target users between the ages of 14 and 38 who had previous

experience of using SNSs.

3.4 Statistical analysis

The statistical analyses were done in SPSS. They were primarily descriptive, using cross

tabs and Independent samples T-test. The main purpose of the statistical analyses was to

compare the level of contact between different SNS members with different relations tothe respondent. This was done by comparing the frequency of contact of different types

of relations, and by examining how the frequency varied between different age groups

and according to gender. Each of these measures contributes to giving a relevant picture

of the types of social capital in question.

3.5 Content analysis

In order to qualify and elaborate on the statistical analysis, a content analysis of responses

to the question what is your most important reason for using the SNS? was carried out.

This open-ended question was answered by 4,417 out of 5233 respondents . An in-depth

content analysis of the answers to this question was combined with frequency counts of

all the qualitative responses using the search function in Excel. By analysing acombination of both qualitative and quantitative in terms of a quantitative content

analysis we hoped to achieve a deeper understanding of what the respondents actually

regarded as their most important social relations. Content analysis is said to be useful for

describing and making inferences about the characteristics of communication and

patterns of usage, as well as making inferences about the consequences of

communication (Holstie, 1969).

The content analysis revealed the following themes to be relevant to this

investigation: family relations, friends and acquaintances, and new relations. The

following search terms (translated from Norwegian) relating to different social ties were

then created:

Family relations:

family home

mummy, mother

dad, father

siblings, sisters, brothers

grandparents, grandfather, granddad, grandmother, grandma

aunt, uncle

cousins.


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Friends and acquaintances:

friends, friend, friendship

old friends, acquaintances, former acquaintances and friends, people with whom

the respondent is familiar in some way or another.

New relations:

new friends

new people.

When searching for content covering these terms, we also took possible spelling errors

into account and used different combinations of the words described above.

From the responses to the open-ended question, several typical statements were

selected for a further qualitative in-depth analysis. This was done to validate the results ofthe quantitative analysis by finding out more about what the respondents actually

regarded as most important, beyond the mere frequency of responses. The main

concern was to identify the motivations and meanings of social relations and practices

of a diverse population in the light of family-based social capital. In the next section,

we supplement the analyses with systematic quotations from the open-ended responses

to illustrate the results. All family-related responses were checked and analysed

manually.

4 Results

4.1 Statistical analysis representative sample

Tables 3 and 4, below, shed light on RQ1, and what kind of social relation (in terms of

bonding and bridging) are sought within SNSs. The figures show how often SNS

members (N = 174) have contact with their family members and friends, or colleagues

and new people (Table 3) and how important it is for the respondents to contact various

types of people in SNSs in the future (Table 4).

Table 3 Frequency of social contact in SNSs in % (N = 174)

Family Friends ColleaguesNew people

online

Never, or almost never 48 21 59 35

Once a month 10 9 13 12

Several times a month 17 14 10 14

Once a week 6 10 7 10

Several times a week 13 22 6 13

Daily 6 24 5 16

Total 100 100 100 100


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Table 4 Importance of future contact in SNSs in % (N = 174)

Family Friends ColleaguesNew people

online

Not important at all 30 16 45 30

Somewhat unimportant 8 5 8 8

Neutral 22 19 20 26

Somewhat important 25 31 17 23

Very important 15 29 10 13

Total 100 100 100 100

As Table 4 shows, 13% of the respondents report that they communicate with family

members several times a week, and only 6% report that they communicate with their

family on a daily basis. In total, 52% of the participants report contact with their family inan SNS once a month or more often. It should be noted that that there is a significant

difference between contact with family and with friends. Contact with friends is more

frequent.

In general, bonding with friends and family is more important than bridging, for both

males and females.

4.1.1 Gender differences

Table 5 reports on gender differences related to different dimensions of social capital

sought inside SNSs. Nearly 40% of the males do not regard more family contact in SNSs

as important, while this is the case for only 20% of the females.

Using an independent sample test, we found a significant difference between malesand female in regard to family bonding. Males are also significantly more interested in

online bridging capital than in family capital.

We also collated only the different social capital dimensions, irrespective of gender,

using one sample T-test. The results show a significant difference between family

bonding and peer bonding. In general, they support the notion that both males and

females value peer bonding more than family bonding in SNSs.

Table 5 Gender difference with respect to bridging and bonding

Social capital dimension Mean

Family-bonding

Male 2.48

Female 2.80

Peer-bonding

Male 3.47

Female 3.73

Online Bridging

Male 3.22

Female 2.96


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4.1.2 Age differences

The information presented in Figure 2 can be used to answer RQ2 and is also relevant to

RQ3, because it shows how contact with friends and family in SNSs changes with age.

Contact with friends changes drastically with age. It is lowest between the ages of 31 and

40 and reaches its maximum between the ages of 20 to 25. Family contact in SNSs is

quite regular among teenagers from the age of 13. Teenagers report the most frequent

family communication in our samples. People in their mid-twenties to the age of 30

report the lowest frequency of family contact. From the age of 31, family contact

increases again.

Figure 2 Level of contact with friends and family within SNSs (mean) as a function of age(N = 174) (see online version for colours)

To test the significance of the results shown in Figure 2, we performed a General Linear

Model Analysis of Variance in SPSS. Differences in family bonding according to age

were not significant (p


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Figure 3 Level of contact with new people only met on the internet within SNSs (mean) as a

function of age (N = 174)

Age Categories

41 throughhighest

31 - 4026 - 3020 - 2517 - 1914 - 16

MeanPeopleyouhavejustmetontheInternet,andnot

havem

etinreallife.

4

3,5

3

2,5

4.2 Qualitative content analysis of communication in SNSs

When we asked respondents an open-ended question about what they regard as most

important when using SNSs (input for answering RQ1 and RQ3), they rarely mentioned

family relations. As may be seen in Figure 4, below, family relations were only reported

by 36 people or 1% of the respondents (N = 4,417). Thirty-one of these 36 respondents

were females. 75% of the sample mentioned different kinds of social networking as the

main reason to participate in an SNS. No one mentioned contact with sisters, brothers,

grandparents, mum or dad as the most important reason for going online. The 1% who

mentioned their family as being an important reason did so only in addition to

mentioning contact with friends. Furthermore, contacting friends and searching for new

friends were the most frequently mentioned reasons for visiting an SNS in terms of social

relations. 36% of the respondents reported contacting friends as the most important

reason for using SNSs, 28% reported that they went there to seek new friends, 8% used

the SNS to keep in contact with acquaintances, and only 3% reported contact with old

friends from school and the like as the most important reason for participating in the

SNS. The column other refers to activities inside the SNS, such as debating and sharing

experiences through pictures and videos. Entertainment and seeking information were

also frequently mentioned.


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Figure 4 Types of relations sought when using SNSs in % (N = 4,417) (see online version for

colours)

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Family

Friends

Seek new friends

Acquaintances

Old friends

Other (not social networking)

Regarding the qualitative content analysis, it should be noted that when responding to the

open question, SNS members wrote mostly about themes with which they were

especially preoccupied. Therefore, the qualitative data show which topics the SNS users

chose to write about. We have counted the different themes mentioned in the answers to

the open question. The frequency of the different themes mentioned might indicate

whether the phenomena mentioned are actually widespread or frequent in a more

representative way (compared to the information in Figure 5 above). The following

paragraphs present a selection of quotations from the answers to the open question. The

quotations were chosen because they reflect the main tendencies of the qualitative

answers. They are categorised according to the five different types of social networking

within SNSs as presented in Figure 4 above:

1 communicating with friends (36%)

2 seeking new friends (28%)

3 contacting acquaintances (8%)

4 getting in touch with old friends (3%)

5 communicating with family members (1%).

4.2.1 Communicating with family members

In answer to the open-ended question in the four SNS surveys, few of the respondents

cite communicating with family members as an important reason for visiting an SNS.

Only a few respondents, mostly girls (86% of the 1%), reported this as an importantreason. As the following quotations show, the few respondents who do mention contact

with family members all bring up contact with friends as theirmostimportant reason for

visiting the SNS.

When asked about her motivation for joining an SNS, a young female mentions

friends first, and then family. This is typical.

I keep in touch with friends and family. It is difficult to keep in touch whenyou live in a small rural area and are shielded from the world. I think it is funto participate in discussions (). Beyond that, it is maybe to find some peoplethat I have met once in order to know them better. (Female 16, Nettby)


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The only exception to this tendency, to just briefly mention contact with family members,

is one male who points to the importance of communicating with his family when using

an SNS. None of the other 36 respondents (1%) who cited family as a reason for going

online reflected upon any benefits to family relations in using such networking sites

beyond contact. A young male who used the site Biip.no, which was the most popular

site for teenagers at the time of the investigation, mentions the possibility to

communicating with his family as one of several reasons for using this SNS.

() It is important to get insight into how other people experience their world.And, of course, to have contact with friends and family, and to take part insomething, to belong to a cool place. (Male 15, Biip)

Furthermore, even when they point to contact with family members in their answers, the

respondents also mention that it is interesting to meet new people, or note the fun of

communicating with new people or building new relationships as central motivations forgoing online. They also point to the importance of being part of their peer group and to

flirting, as this young male from HamarUngdom underlines.

It is fun! I get to know a lot of new friends, and keep in contact with friendsand family. It is fun to surf around daily. PLUS, I met my girlfriend here. ()(Male 17, HamarUngdom)

Those answers from respondents that mention contact with family as a motivation for

using SNSs show that family bonding is mostly a consequence of the respondents wish

to use the sites for building other types of relationships, rather than the wish to strengthen

family ties.

4.2.2 Communicating with friendsCommunicating with friends is of considerable importance when it comes to the building

and maintenance of peer relationships. This was the category of mediated content most

frequently mentioned by SNS members (36%). Those who stress contact with friends

describe the use of SNSs as an efficient tool for keeping in contact with several friends at

the same time. They also regard online communication as a cheap and efficient way of

keeping in contact with friends, to follow what their friends are doing and who their

friends are in contact with. The sharing of pictures and experiences among friends is also

an important motivation. The answer below from a female SNS user mentions several of

the main reasons for communicating with friends online.

I participate because 1) it is a very efficient means to keep in touch withseveral friends at the same time; 2) it is a cheap alternative to use when you

want to have contact with friends abroad, because it is more costly to make aphone call; 3) it is a faster way of communicating than using a traditional letter,which will take several days to reach the receiver; 4) it is an easier method toget in touch with others on the Internet. (Female, 24, Underskog)

4.2.3 Getting in touch with old friends

SNSs are seen as an important way of keeping in touch with old friends by 2.8% of the

respondents. For them, an SNS is a significant channel for tracing people with whom they

have lost contact (e.g., old friends or people they went to school with) and/or maintaining


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contact with old friends. A response from a 16-year-old male points out the benefit of

using SNSs for young people, if they are moving from one school to another:

() It is very fun to be part of a community, to meet old friends and to makenew friends. If I had not been part of the Nettby.no community, I would havelost all my friends that I went to junior high school with. We keep in touchbecause of Nettby. (Male 16, Nettby)

4.2.4 Contact with acquaintances

SNSs are often used for establishing relations with people outside ones circle of family

and friends. 7.6% of the respondents regard the use of an SNS as an important channel

for keeping in contact with acquaintances. A typical comment is that SNSs makes it easy

to have contact with several people; using SNSs supports a kind of

hyper-communication. SNS members track what their acquaintances are doing and whatkind of content they are posting or consuming. In the quotation below, a 25-year-old

female stresses the benefit of keeping in touch with more peripheral friends or

acquaintances, an activity that might be characterised as the generation of weak ties. She

uses the SNS community to find out where to find and meet others, and she is able to

keep in contact with people who would not be so easy to meet without the connection and

information she gets from the SNS:

It is very useful to meet other people who have similar interests, and in anSNS you can see who expresses what themes and interests (). Moreover,access to the calendar (diary/things to do in the Oslo calendar) of otheracquaintances makes it possible and easier to meet more peripheral friends.(Female 25, Underskog)

4.2.5 Seeking new friends

Seeking to establish new friendships is the theme mentioned second most frequently by

SNS members (28%). The excitement of meeting new people and finding people with

similar interests are the main benefits for establishing this kind of relationship. As

demonstrated in the answer quoted below, SNSs such as Biip are regarded as

communication arenas where people can get in touch with each other easily and cheaply;

they can even communicate with people whom they would not dare to meet face to face.

In addition, through SNSs, people meet each other in ways that might be more truthful

and open than offline meetings; in that sense, SNSs have the potential to facilitate

communication between people who might be prejudiced against one another in the real

world. Further, these findings imply that relationships that begin online may migrate to

other settings.I participate because it is exciting; and I meet very many nice friends that youalso can meet in real life! There are a lot of nice people at biip.no. I have alsobecome friends with 45 new people and met them. The owners of biip.noare so good because they have given youth an opportunity to not just watch TVall the time. You have the opportunity to get acquainted with people that youdont dare to talk to in real life! I have, for example, talked to a lot of girls inboth higher and lower grades, that I didnt like very much before, but they allturned out to be very nice and very kind people. (Female 13, Biip)


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5 Discussion

The following discussion is structured according to our RQs.

5.1 RQ1: social relations sought within SNSs

Our qualitative data, constituted by responses to the open-ended question, show that

communication with friends is the most important relation sought, while family is the

least important and is sought less frequently. However, there are a lot of different

relations sought within SNSs, including family, friends, colleagues, and strangers. Using

our qualitative data as a basis, the importance of different social relations sought in SNSs

may be categorised and ranked in the following order:

1 communicating with friends2 seeking new friends

3 contacting acquaintances

4 keeping in touch with old friends

5 communicating with family members.

Non-socialising activities account for the remaining 24% of reasons for using SNSs.

The fact that contacting existing friends is the most popular reason cited for using

SNSs is supported by the quantitative survey data from the Rep. Sample; thus, these

data show that SNS users are more positive towards contacting family through other

means of communication. However, it is important to remember that the majority of the

users were teenagers. Teenagers and young people in their mid-twenties might be moreopen to fostering new relationships than older users of SNSs. This is particularly the case

when young people move into adolescence; to them, social relationships become

increasingly important and peer relationships expand to occupy a particularly central role

in their lives (Damon, 1983). This notion is also supported by the results presented in

Figure 3.

Bridging capital or getting acquainted with new people (weak ties) seems to form an

important part of social networking in SNS communities, particularly among males.

These findings are similar to those of other recent research, which suggest that

internet-based connections are important for the formation of weak ties because they

constitute a foundation for the bridging of social capital (Ellison et al., 2007). The

bridging of social capital by this method might be more frequent than it used to be, due to

the growth of SNSs. Due to the establishment of SNSs, social bridging is no longer

restricted to time and space. Many of the respondents reported excitement of meeting

new people and making new friends as their main motivation for using SNSs. This

investigation indicates that SNSs support users in their creation of not only bridging

capital (weak ties) but also bonding capital, but only among friends and not among

family. Thereby, SNSs might be contributing to the ongoing processes of

individualisation in society and the family. SNSs easily foster the formation of weak ties

by offering cheap and easy many-to-many communication, as well as informal

communication (Donath and Boyd, 2004). It is no wonder that younger people, in


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particular, use SNSs principally to maintain contact with their peers and to become

acquainted with new people.It is possible, at least in part, to view the rise of relationship formation in SNSs in the

light of the phenomenon of pure relationships, which are defined by Giddens (1992) as

social relations that depend fundamentally on satisfactions or rewards that are internal to

that relationship itself. Furthermore, it is possible for a user to ignore friends as well as to

delete them when he or she no longer wishes to have any contact with them. Pure

relationships are described in the following statement by one of our respondents: it is very

useful to meet other people that have similar interests. This perspective might be

developed further by examining the motivation of another respondent: you have the

opportunity to get acquainted with people that you dont dare to talk to in real life!

Further, according to the Rep sample, bonding with family is regard to be of high

importance, which might suggest that this interaction is not yet being supported by SNS

design, concept or goal. It is also an indication that SNS users want to combine bothbonding and bridging in SNSs. SNSs is therefore more than just a platform for

developing pure relationships; they may also offer a platform for maintaining offline

relations, such as family ties.

5.2 RQ2: age and gender differences

Our quantitative data suggest that the importance of different types of social relationship

varies across age groups: contact with friends in SNSs is significantly more frequent

among young people, while family contact becomes more important again from the age

of 30. Bridging with online contacts is also significantly more frequent among younger

teenagers than among people in their twenties. SNSs might therefore offer teenagers not

only a greater opportunity to get in touch with strangers and people with common

interests than other communication technologies, but also opportunities to flirt. The

reduced presence of social cues and social constraints in a media environment may

facilitate social contact (Kaare et al., 2007). The majority of the teenaged respondents

reported that they have regular contact with online friends. This might also have an

important impact on the way relationships and social identity form and evolve. The

reasons for the sudden increase of online relations in the age of 30s should be

investigated further.

Further, in the qualitative data, only 1% of the respondents reported the maintenance

of family relations as the most important reason for using SNSs. The great majority of

this 1% were females (86%). Even if the percentage of these answers is very low, they

might indicate that there is a gender difference in SNSs, where females are making a

greater effort to maintain family-based social capital than males. At any rate, there seems

to be a confirmed pattern in both the qualitative and quantitative answers that shows thatfemales are more active in maintaining the social capital of the family within SNSs.

Family-bonding was the only statistically significant result we found in regard to gender

differences in the Rep. Sample. The tendency of females to use the internet to cultivate

relationships with family and friends is also suggested by a Pew Internet and American

Life Project (2000) study.

This might indicate that females take the same approach towards strong ties in SNSs

as they do in other arenas in society. The opportunities to gain and to seek more weak ties

in SNSs do not seem to affect the fact that females take care of their close relationships

and in this way are both bridging and bonding social capital. However, it should be noted


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that girls have also been found to be more frequent users of communication technologies

for social activities in general (Wartella et al., 2000).

5.3 RQ3: SNS users and social capital of the family

When we analysed the qualitative responses, we found family-based social capital to be

low in SNSs. Our quantitative analysis suggests that family contact is somewhat frequent

and valued as important in SNSs, but that it differs noticeably according to both gender

and age. However, we should not ignore the fact that 52% of the total sample reported

having contact with their families once a month or more often in SNSs. This is true for

significantly more females than males.

The most clearly discernible motivations for using SNSs is bonding with friends and

forming relationships with weaker ties. In most SNS user profiles, it is possible to add

friends (any relations are always labelled as friends) but not family, which tell usthat family is not seen as a purpose of SNSs by the designers. In addition, user loyalty to

SNSs and their members has proven to be quite low; lack of satisfaction with the other

members in the network seems to be the most important reason for diminishing loyalty

(Brandtzg and Heim, 2008). The lack of faithfulness towards SNSs could be another

explanation of why family is not a big issue in these new services, since family contact

often is connected with a stable environment. In addition, the SNSs may, at present, lack

the safe and predictable environment that most family relations seek; this should be noted

as an important requirement in regard to the design of future SNSs.

However, we should not ignore the fact that the majority of the users in the Rep.

Sample report having contacted members of their family inside SNSs; this might suggest

an important shift towards a combination of both weak ties (bridging capital) and more

real-life connections (bonding social capital) or a focus towards close connections insocial communities online. Previous online communities have been dominated by

anonymous participation and social interaction related to bridging social capital around

common interests (Preece, 2002). Our results suggest that the SNSs of today combine

these forms of social capital more easily.

5.4 Limitations and further research

There are mainly four limitations related to the present study.

The first methodological limitation is the differences in this study between the

quantitative and qualitative findings in relation to family should be commented on. It

could be explained by and found in the very nature of the questionnaire: a wish to

respond in such a way as to avoid criticism might have led the respondents to

overestimate frequent and future contact with their family members. This is a generalmethodological problem of structured questionnaires. However, pointing in the opposite

direction, the open qualitative question did not specifically address family issues; rather,

it asked for motivations for visiting the SNS in general, which in turn could also lead to

more reliable and straightforward answers from the respondents.

The second limitation in this study is that the community members in the four SNSs

who participated in this study were self-selected directly for the study, while those from

the Rep. Sample were self-selected in the sense of voluntarily participating in an online

panel. Even so, the Rep. Sample is representative for the online population in Norway


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in terms of age, gender, and education. It is true that the self selection to the online panel

might partially account for the reported high frequency of relationship formations andcommunication in general. Hence, we may say that the Rep. Sample served, to some

extent, as a corrective to the four SNS samples. The weaknesses related to the Rep

Sample was that it only included a few number of SNS users (N = 174), which may

explain few significant statistical findings in regard to gender differences. In the interests

of reliability, it would be wise for the designers of future studies to include a larger

sample of representative online users.

The third limitation is that this study is oriented towards just one particular kind of

online communication, SNSs, whereas peoples social capital develops and is maintained

via several communication channels. A more holistic approach to different types of

communication, using different media, is needed. Different media may be associated with

different types of intimacy. Making a telephone call is more intimate than sending an

email. Differential use of particular means of communication might, therefore, facilitatedifferent types of social ties. Future studies should therefore focus on the level of contact

between SNS members and their families by other media, such as email, IM (messenger),

or mobile phones.

The finale limitation is that this study only involves cross-sectional data from one

single country. This finale limitation makes it difficult to make generalisations about

changes over time and cross-cultural differences. Future research investigating social

capital in SNSs should involve both longitudinal data and cross-cultural data.

6 Conclusions

Despite several limitations, the present study documents, to a large degree, how people

use SNSs and what types of social capital these SNSs might foster, across age and

gender. The strength of the present study is that the sample was large and included four

different SNSs and a representative sample of online users. Previous studies have often

studied only one SNS, such as MySpace (e.g., Boyd, 2007) or Facebook (e.g., Ellison et

al., 2007). The combination of both qualitative and quantitative data also contributed to

the reliability of this study.

Our results show that visiting SNSs is increasingly a part of the daily communication

routine of many populations. SNSs are used for a wide range of purposes, but various

social networking activities (including bonding and bridging) seem to be most common.

Thus, there is a need to acquire greater knowledge about the implications of the

increasing diffusion of SNSs, as well as their implications for the social lives of their

users and how this kind of use supports or disrupts family-based social capital.

Our quantitative findings indicate that communication between family members issomewhat important and quite regular among 25% of the SNS members, mostly females.

The importance of family varies across age groups.

In contrast to the quantitative analysis, which indicates the extent of communication,

the qualitative data give more insight into why and withwhom people socialise, and into

what types of relations and social capital are established. The prime motivations for using

an online SNS were not social contact with other family members, but rather to keep in

touch with existing peers or friends and to develop new relationships. Both data sources

in this study suggest that in SNSs there is an interplay between both weak and strong ties,

but that bridging capital activities might be important. That being so, SNSs could be


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considered as a new type of social glue, which is in contrast to earlier online

communities, which did not support real-life connections to the same degree. However,

this new type of social glue does not seem to be cementing new types of relationship.

Modern SNSs seem to preserve traditional social networking patterns and

gender-differentiated social capital. Whereas men have networks that are more formal,

reflecting their employment or occupational status, women have networks that are more

informal that are centred on family and kin.

Finally, SNS usage does not seem to disrupt real-life connections, such as bonding

between friends and family relations. Both bonding and bridging capital is built in SNSs.

These distinct dimensions of social capital should further be supported by the design of

future SNSs, where easier communication tools for family relations should be prioritised.

Acknowledgements

This research has received funding from the Citizen Media project (038312) in the

European Communitys Sixth Framework Programme (FP6-2005-IST), and the

RECORD-project, supported by the Research Council of Norway and the

VERDIKT-programme. We would like to thank the users that participated in the study.

Finally, we thank our colleagues at SINTEF ICT Asbjrn Flstad, Amela

Karahasanovi, and Jan Hvard Skjetne for supporting our work.

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Bridging and Bonding in Social Network Sites_investigating Family Based Capital