The other day I was at home on Facebook and received a new friend request from my primary school friend who I had not spoken to in ages. I thought I had lost contact with her and when I saw the friend request I was over the moon. I was so happy that we were able to talk again and then started to think about how smart the person who made Facebook is. The ideas of social networks seem to have expanded as many people take part in them these days. People all over the world can now get in contact with each other through social networks. Social networks become more and more advanced each day. When I think back to the first social network I ever became part of it was MSN,Bebo, Myspace, Profilepic,skype and then Facebook. When I thought facebook was the last social network invented then Twitter became more popular and I am even considering making one as well just so I can keep up with the times.
Technology is always updating and so it is getting difficult to even keep up with it. These social networks make it easier for people to get in contact with each other and reunite with old and current friends and also make new friends who share the same interests as them. The Internet has been linked both to increases and decreases in social capital. Nie (2001), for example, argued that Internet use detracts from face-to-face time with others, which might diminish an individual's social capital. Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. Social capital is created by interpersonal transactions that form a relationship between two parties. That relationship then creates a form of capital that is either difficult to value or difficult to exchange.
From my lectures I learnt how social capital is not really a new idea but everything about the ways we can create value as well as promoting and exchanging social capital is what is new. The idea that social capital is new is quite misleading considering it existed way before the internet and the other ways of communication. I learnt how social capital today mainly focuses on the role that the internet and online networks which show its development and amount of usage by others however this does not create social capital.
The question that I ask myself is where social capital originated from if it was around way before the internet how did it start, who was the person who invented it or is it really something to do with culture in the society.
