Social Capital or Social Alienation? Portuguese Youth and Social

Networking Sites

An exploratory study

Bárbara Barbosa NevesFausto Amaro

Centre for Public Administration & Policies,Institute of Social and Political Sciences of

Technical University of Lisbon,Portugal

Social Networking Sites?

SNS in PortugalPOR TUGAL

EUROPE

LISBON

Impact of SNS

How are social networking sites affecting the lives of young people?

Our project• How are the Portuguese youth using social

networking sites? How is this usage affecting their sociability and social capital?

• Web survey with facebook and hi5 Portuguese users - August 2009 to March 2010.

• 160 respondents between 15 and 29 years old.

Online Survey: Demographics• 160 users:

28

21

111

% or Mean S.D.

Gender

female 58.7% (94)

male 41.3% (66)

Age 24.94 3.21

Social network: close friends

• 73% meet their friends face-to-face more than once a month;

• 70% use mobile phone to call their friends, daily;

• 75% chat with their friends online, on a daily basis.

Mean 4.95S.D. 1.302

Social network: Family

• 67% meet their close family face-to-face daily

• 54% use mobile phone to talk to their close family more than once a week

• 8.8% chat daily with their close family online

N=139

1.9%

14.4%

17.5%

10.0%10.0%

7.5%2.5%

23.1%

More than once an hour

Once a day

More than once a day

Once a week

More than once a week

Once a month

More than once a month

Rarely

Frequency on hi5

N=139

10.6%

14.4%

38.8%

3.8%

9.4%

0.6% 1.9% 3.1%

More than once an hourOnce a dayMore than once a dayOnce a weekMore than once a weekOnce a monthMore than once a monthRarely

N=132

Frequency on facebook

Friends on SNS

Number of “friends”

Closefriends

Number of “friends”

Closefriends

Mean 328.27 15.43 147.70 15

Median 263 8 102 8

S.D. 331.316 1.414 177.140 1.252

N=160

Reasons to use hi5

83.0%

15.6%

33.8%

6.9%35.0%

31.9%

19.4%

20.6%

8.1%22.5%

25.6% 6.3%

Communicate with friends

Communicate with family

Communicate with school friends

Communicate with co-workers

Check what friends are doing

Check info about people

Meet new people

Share info

Play games

Have fun

Occupy my free time

FlirtN=139

Reasons to use facebook

71.3%

24.4%

39.4%

31.3%

50.6%36.9%

18.8%

34.4%

29.4%

43.1%18.8%

36.9% 5.0%

Communicate with friends

Communicate with family

Communicate with school friends

Communicate with co-workers

Check what friends are doing

Check info about people

Meet new people

Share info

Play games

Have fun

Occupy my free time

FlirtN=132

Bonding SC hi5Scale and Individual Items Mean S.D.

Bonding Scale*(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78)

2.98 .96

This community is a good place to be 3.09 .78I feel connected to this community 2.78 .95I worry with the community 2.86 1.03I have close friends in this community 3.98 .95This community makes my life easier 2.41 .89My close family is part of my community 2.73 1.16

* Response categories ranged from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree.

Bonding SC facebookScale and Individual Items Mean S.D.

Bonding Scale*(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.72)

3.32 .86

This community is a good place to be 3.77 .72I feel connected to this community 3.45 .82I worry with the community 3.20 .97I have close friends in this community 4.10 .59This community makes my life easier 2.85 1.02My close family is part of my community 2.56 1.26

* Response categories ranged from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree.

Bridging SC hi5Scale and Individual Items Mean S.D.

Bridging Scale*(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.75)

2.96 1.02

This community is a good place to be 3.09 .78I feel connected to this community 2.78 .95I can talk to others about difficulties in the community

2.84 .97

I have more contact with acquaintances 3.36 1.13I made new friends in this community 2.74 1.29

* Response categories ranged from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree.

Bridging SC facebookScale and Individual Items Mean S.D.

Bridging Scale*(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.70)

3.30 .96

This community is a good place to be 3.77 .72I feel connected to this community 3.45 .82I can talk to others about difficulties in the community

3.18 .96

I have more contact with acquaintances 3.50 1.06I made new friends in this community 2.62 1.23

* Response categories ranged from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree.

Closing Remarks

• SNS seem to be mainly spaces of social interaction and socialization.

• “Rich get richer model”

• Need to know more of the “why” and not only “what”

Thank you!

Bárbara Barbosa Nevesbarbara@bbneves.com www.bbneves.com

Fausto Amarofamaro@iscsp.utl.pt