Anti-social capital
David Gibson at the Complexity and Social Networks blog.
The Facebook statistics recently provided by Alexander Schellong—such as that the site adds an astonishing 600,000 users per day—are worthy of serious contemplation by social scientists still playing catch-up when it comes to this and other forms of online communication. But at the risk of seeming curmudgeonly (I imagine my undergrads, Facebook devotees all, rolling their eyes), I want to make a prediction. Social scientists are very fond of “capital,” which is a type of resource with a plausible connection to some desired outcome. These include economic capital (money), human capital (skills), cultural capital (powers of discernment vis-a-vis cultural objects), conversational capital (interesting things to talk about) and social capital (social connections). To this list I predict that we will eventually want to add something that I am tempted to call anti-social capital, which is a snarky (and imprecise) term for the absence of ties of a certain type, namely those whose main consequence is that you spend a lot of time online communicating with people who, like you, have a lot of time to spend socializing online. It’s not hard to foresee why someone without such connections would fair better at school, in the workplace, and in their family relations than someone with them, other things being equal.
Of course, the problem is not merely time diverted from more serious pursuits—exercise, learning, thinking long and hard about life’s problems, interacting with those with whom one shares microbes—but also the disclosure of personal and potentially damaging information. That might point to yet another kind of capital, which I’ll call non-self-disclosure capital, which is the state of not having made public (especially online) information about yourself that could result in a serious loss of face, life prospects, and possibly safety if the information gets circulated beyond its intended audience.
See also his general thoughts on the uselessness of the term social capital (thoughts I heartily endorse).
Comments
That makes is rather like any club or other religious group that discourages participation in the outside economy to instead do non-market deals with club members.
Social capital is often a substitute for the goods and services of the market economy.
Posted by: TheOneEyedMan![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.themonkeycage.org/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 17, 2009 05:46 PM
I don’t have a problem with the term social capital so much as the lack of substance in the mechanisms. It ends up getting used as a catch-all phrase for everything from socially-exchanged information to some vague notion of generalized trust. So while many of the studies that explore “it” are interesting, I find the overarching concept to be tending towards the same sort of uselessness as “realignment.”
That said, I think this gets at the heart of the “anti-capital” post made by Gibson. For us to know whether or not on-line ties are somehow more costly than others, we’d have to have a much better theoretical and empirical understanding of what exactly it is people are getting from the ties.
If its information on politics, for example, then on-line ties might be even more efficient than face-to-face ties. If its some sort of emotional benefit that we receive from time spent together, then obviously the difference matters. So while I love the idea that we want to study the absence of ties (structural holes as Burt calls them) rather than just their presence, I also think that more work needs to be done on defining the nature of influence.
/self promoting post
Posted by: Scott McClurg![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.themonkeycage.org/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 18, 2009 07:42 AM
When are people going to stop looking at Facebook and other social media as a new way to waste time and rather look at it as a new way of communication? Why is time wasted on idle Facebook communication any more damaging to my academic work than time wasted on idle chatter over a cup of cofee at the campus coffee shop?
Social internet media have made social interaction more available even as I sit by my office computer. Distracting chatter and meaningful, academically relevant communication equally much.
Whether or not one likes the term social capital, it appears to me to be a misconception with grumpy old professors that asocial students do better than social active ones. Of the truly brilliant students I know, most of them are also among the socially most active. Most of them area also on Facebook. Just as social interaction can be something other than getting drunk and smoking pot, so can active participation through internet channels be more than a mere waste of time.
I would assume a blogger would be the first to acknowledge this…
Posted by: Sverre | March 18, 2009 12:24 PM
I thought that the post was funny (and I imagine not entirely serious) - the bit I do agree with is the suggestion that ‘social capital’ is a vague and waffly term that we should expunge forthwith from the social science lexicon.
Posted by: Henry | March 19, 2009 11:43 PM
I guess I’m a bit slow for not noticing the irony. Personally I tend to use the term ‘social capital’, even if I agree with you. It is used in a vague and waffly way, but it describes an existent if elusive phenomenon - that social interaction has value, and apparently increasingly so as information is more and more available.
If you have another way of describing this that wouldn
t be so analytically meaningless as the current use of ‘social capital’, I’d love to see it.
Posted by: Sverre | March 20, 2009 04:36 AM