Is our online presence an Indicator of our Social Capital?
There are many people using their large Social Capital to create movements and enact change. Some of these people have amassed millions and millions of followers and viewers. They have so many friends, right? Friendships are built upon shared experiences and social media makes that a one-sided relationship. So, do they really have millions of friends?
Social Networking online is such an important aspect of our lives. Networking opens up new door of opportunities to jobs, friends, romantic partners etc. Online groups even provide contexts for forming one-on-one relationships. And because of this, when person A meets person B, there social networks are able to meet each other through A and B. The downside of Social Networking online is that people are less knowledgeable about their surroundings. In the book Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Baym talks about Civic Engagement. She states that one way to assess civic engagement is to, “ask people how many of their neighbors they know. Compared people who had used the internet recently to non-users of the internet and found that recent users knew the fewest, while non-users were most likely to know them all. I believe this to be very true. I remember when I was younger around 12 years old, way before I ever started using the internet to socialize, I would know all the kids in my neighborhood. We would play outside all the time. But once I got to high school, Instagram, YouTube, and Vine were all so popular and all the kids in my high school were using them. So, I started it to. The kids in my neighborhood and I started coming outside less and less. I do believe that the majority of people nowadays don’t make full use of this tool. I believe that most of their “friendships” are superficial. The reason I say this is because friendships are built on shared experiences with each other and the fact is that many social media stars have so many followers and viewers, but they are just that, followers and viewers. It is a one-sided relationship. The reason the viewers feel connected to the people they watch is because they feel as though they are experiencing those moments with them. But it does not work the other way around.
In the book, Social Media Freaks, Kidd Talks about Minority groups and how they have “embraced social media as a set of tools that can be used to connect with others share resources, organize politically. And advocate for change.” This means that there are people using social networking for good reasons. Using it as a tool for change. So, I believe that the quality of people’s social capital is not determined by whether they use the internet to Social Network or not, but rather how they use it and who they use it with. And for that reason, I believe that people’s online presence is not an indicator of their social capital.
A group of Youtubers that I watch, The Sidemen, have well over 50 million subscribers combined. The ‘reciprocity’ to the audience is entertainment. Laughter, Humor, Comedy, none of which are physical items, yet they are able to retain all those subscribers. And the reason is that they give people an experience, through their videos, that they otherwise would not have in their lives. Sailing on a Yacht in Dubai, traveling through the desert on camels, going on a music tour etc. So, my final thoughts on Social Capital are that having a large online following/friendship circle is not an indicator of your social capital. Instead, it should be determined by the quality of those friendships.
~SUDS, 2022
References
Baym, N. K. (2010). Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kidd, D. (2017). Social Media Freaks. Colorado: Westview Press.
