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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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234 P.B. Brandtzg et al.
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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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 235
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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236 P.B. Brandtzg et al.
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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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 237
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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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 239
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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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 241
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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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 243
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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246 P.B. Brandtzg et al.
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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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 247
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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248 P.B. Brandtzg et al.
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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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 249
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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250 P.B. Brandtzg et al.
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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Bridging and bonding in social network sites 251
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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