jack_and_me

We also found an interaction between bridging social capital and subjective well-being measures. For less intense Facebook users, students who reported low satisfaction with Michigan State University (MSU) life also reported having much lower bridging social capital than those who used Facebook more intensely. The same was true for self-esteem. Conversely, there was little difference in bridging social capital among those who reported high satisfaction with life at MSU and high self-esteem relative to Facebook use intensity. One explanation consistent with these interaction effects is that Facebook use may be helping to overcome barriers faced by students who have low satisfaction and low self-esteem. Because bridging social capital provides benefits such as increased information and opportunities, we suspect that participants who use Facebook in this way are able to get more out of their college experience. The suggestion that Facebook use supports a "poor get richer" hypothesis, as opposed to the "rich get richer" findings reported in other contexts (Kraut, Kiesler, Boneva, Cummings, Helgeson, & Crawford, 2002), may be of special interest to Internet researchers...

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