The use of online social networking sites to nurture and cultivate bonding social capital: A systematic review of the literature from 1997 to 2018

Abstract

Any social phenomenon with more than a billion participants daily is ripe for investigation into the implications of social capital. This research conducts a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature and conference material published between 1 January 1997 and 31 March 2018 regarding the question, can the use of online social networking sites cultivate and nurture an individual’s bonding social capital? The systematic review using EBSCOhost, EndNote, and final manual review process has aggregated 54 articles containing 116 distinct studies resulting in 85 answering in the affirmative to the research question. These studies are coded into a 13-category framework to provide a roadmap to future researchers. The results are wide and varied providing data from large and small groups. Generalization of the results supports the research question in that individual bonding social capital can be cultivated and nurtured via use of online social networking sites.

Keywords

Bonding social capital field theory literature review online social networking sites propinquity

Introduction

A majority of Americans make use of online social networking sites daily (Smith and Anderson, 2018). These online social networks are just that, social, and come in many forms. The now ubiquitous Facebook, at present has 1.45 billion daily active users (Facebook, 2018) participating in information-sharing of many kinds. Families and friends sharing the personal, workers the professional, and news organizations, both traditional and nascent, creating and distributing journalistic content. Governments around the world use the platform to share agendas, humanitarian information, and to interact with constituencies. Corporations advertise their products to consumers and provide technical support. Indeed, Twitter has become the platform du jour for leading politicians, and a real-time press release mechanism for all the agencies listed above. LinkedIn is used for many of the same purposes, but specifically as an online curriculum vitae for those looking to display their skills to colleagues, hiring managers, and recruiters. Instagram is a microblogging network where users share photos and video stories with their “followers.” Beyond these few, there are dozens more serving populations both narrow and broad with varying purposes.

As with any situation in which people are placed in proximity—even when that proximity, or “nearness” is an illusion created by the real-time nature of online interaction, shared interests, and self-disclosure of information (Kent, 2010), Festinger’s et al. (1950) propinquity effect, the psychological feeling of nearness applies. While Festinger’s data consisted of apartment dwellers living in close physical proximity to one another, the last 70 years have seen enormous innovation in communication technologies (instant messaging, video chat, smartphones, online social networking sites, etc.) These new technologies have not eliminated (Latané et al., 1995) the need for physical proximity to create and maintain relationships, but have complemented it, and decreased the requirement for it. Through these new technologies and Korzenny’s (1978) electronic propinquity effect (Fox and Rainie, 2014; Perry and Mittelmark, 2006; Perry and Ricca, 2006; Walther, 2011; Walther and Bazarova, 2008), relationships develop. Maintenance, frequency of contact, information-sharing and self-disclosure in online arenas lead to the formation of social capital.

In Distinction: A Social Critique of Taste, Pierre Bourdieu describes and defines the elements of people who function and interact in society. These elements are interdependent, and amount to the “total assets” of our existence: our economic, cultural, symbolic, and social capital. Economic capital refers to the money, property, and goods that we possess. Cultural capital is what we know, what skills we have, where we learned them, and whether someone or some institution has validated that we know what we know. Symbolic capital is who we are, our position in society, and what, if any authority comes with it (Bourdieu, 1984). This article addresses the fourth component, our social capital.

Social capital is “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition—or in other words, to membership in a group—which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectively owned capital, a ‘credential’ which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word. These relationships may exist only in the practical state, in material and/or symbolic exchanges which help to maintain them” (Bourdieu, 1986). Putnam (2001) and Granovetter (1977) sought to describe the “strong” (bonding), and “weak” (bridging) ties, respectively, and the amalgamations of trusting relationships (Coleman, 1986) that compose the bonds and bridges (Gittell and Vidal, 1998) of social capital. As Burt (1997) reminds us, a wealth of these capital assets is needed for our success, but without social capital we will not have the opportunity to use them. The focus of this article and the exploration it will undertake are the strong relationships of the bonding form of social capital. These relationships are the close ties we develop over time with our neighbors, co-workers, friends, and family who share our interests and characteristics. As it has been for thousands of years, society and culture have been in a perpetual state of flux, recent among these changes is, where, and when, we create and develop relationships.

Online social networking sites provide a ready infrastructure for maintenance of both the modes of social capital (Tong and Walther, 2011). In this systematic review of the literature, I focus on the use of online social networking sites by individuals to nurture and cultivate bonding social capital. Focusing on the form of bonding social capital, I will collect and examine the existing literature to determine to what extent it is possible for an individual to nurture and cultivate bonding social capital using online social networking sites. Specifically, nurturing is maintaining existing bonding social capital and growing it. Cultivating refers to the process of acquiring and developing bonding social capital. I will also discuss the possible risks and dangers inherent in the high-speed nature of these mechanisms’ ability to propagate information and to facilitate communication between those who share bonding social capital.

Online social networking sites

The 1.45 billion daily active users of Facebook (Facebook, 2018) demonstrate the pervasive nature and penetration of so many populations worldwide by this singular social networking platform. Using the definition boyd and Ellison (2013) provide, as well as Pew Research Center’s (Smith and Anderson, 2018) description of online social networking sites, this review examines social networking sites as a phenomenon that began in 1997 with SixDegrees.com. Online social networking sites are platforms with the following parameters: “(1) have uniquely identifiable profiles that consist of user-supplied content, content provided by other users, and/or system-level data; (2) can publicly articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others; and (3) can consume, produce, and/or interact with streams of user-generated content provided by their connections on the site” (Ellison and boyd, 2013). Pew (Smith and Anderson, 2018) includes platforms that have formed since boyd and Ellison’s first and revised definition (boyd and Ellison, 2007; Ellison and boyd, 2013).

Bonding social capital and the digital field

Putnam (2001) credits Gittell and Vidal (1998) with coining the classifying terms of “Bridging” and “Bonding” in the social capital realm. Putnam elucidates the meaning of the two. In short, the bonding form is a homogeneous, dense, and trustworthy network (e.g. church groups, fraternities, and ethnic groups) of strong ties (Putnam, 2001) formed for “getting-by” (De Souza Briggs, 1998). To “get ahead” the bridging form is used to make external, weak ties (Granovetter, 1977), bringing together heterogeneous groups (Putnam, 2002) to gain access to assets not available inside the trusted bonded network. While Putnam (2002) discusses the maladaptive nature of possessing only bonding capital, both his and Coleman’s (1986) work discuss bridging and bonding social capital operating in concert, and that the intensity levels of each type fluctuate through the lifecycle of relationships. Taking issue with the argument that bonding capital can lead only to dysfunction by excluding differing views (Putnam, 2002), Leonard (2004) studied bonded Catholic groups in West Belfast during the violent conflict in Northern Ireland in the late-twentieth century. She found that these groups were indeed able to, “get ahead” by working not only within their exclusive networks, but outside of a larger system that was found to be untrustworthy. Widmalm (2005) further discusses examples of bonded social capital movements (e.g. the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s) and further makes the point that the bonding nature of those movements was the defining factor of their success.

These discussions are rooted in Coleman (1986, 2000) and Bourdieu’s (1984, 1986); concepts of social capital. Bourdieu expanded field theory to encompass new forms of media in his work On Television (Bourdieu, 1998). Benson (1999) too placed media and journalism into Bourdieu’s field theory framework. In the subsequent 20 years, authors have built upon these works and have posited that the Internet is another new field, and that we now have a digital social capital. Julien (2015) and Bozkuş (2016) apply the concept into the digital realm of the “Internet meme.” Moreover, a number of studies propose that understanding specific platform functionality is crucial to using this digital social capital (Lee et al., 2014; Stanfield et al., 2017). Adopting Bourdieu and Wacquant’s concept of “fields” of social capital, these fields (memes and functionality, etc.) are the social structures (rules, regulations, norms), or the “space[s] of play” in which the agents of social capital operate (Bourdieu, 1985; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Pierre, 1989). Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) go further to say that the analogy of a game can be tenuously used to describe these fields. In Bourdieu’s own words, participants, “… have an investment in the game … players are taken in by the game, they oppose one another, sometimes with ferocity, only to the extent that they concur in their belief in the game and its stakes; they grant these a recognition that escapes conditioning … by mere fact of playing, and not by way of ‘contract,’ that the game is worth playing ….” Bourdieu’s game analogy makes use of the terms: habitus, doxa, and illusio. The habitus is understood as the physical embodiment of cultural capital and how it is perceived through the lens of our accumulated life experiences. Doxa is the belief in what is self-evident or taken for granted in our society, our social norms and unspoken rules. And, illusio is our “investment” in an activity, that what we’re doing is worth doing; whether that is living in society, or going to a birthday party (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu and Nice, 1977; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). In the case of the online social networking field, habitus marks the experience of the users, and how they employ the knowledge required to use the social networking site platforms; doxa the rules and norms of behavior and when to use certain features of the platforms; the illusio that the users of the platforms believe they are worth participating in, have significance, and a benefit, to continued use, and that not using them comes with some detriment to our personal standing. Online social networking sites are, as Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) would call them, “relatively autonomous social microcosms” including within themselves many more such autonomous microcosms all playing roles on the Internet’s digital fields of social capital. While this introduction appears to intermingle several distinct approaches (Bourdieu, Coleman, Putnam, Granovetter, et.al.) of social capital, that is not the intention. Instead, I am drawing parallels from various theoretical approaches to demonstrate their applicability to the world of the online social networking sites. By reviewing Bourdieu’s (1985, 1998) and Bourdieu and Wacquant’s (1992) fields of play, Coleman’s (1986, 2000) social contexts, Putnam (2001, 2002) and Putnam et al.’s (1993) homogeneous groups and civic action, and Granovetter’s (1983, 1977) networks of weak ties, I set the stage for the use of these theories within digital realms, focusing only on the bonding social capital of individuals. Resnick (2001) takes a similar approach when framing his discussion of the SocioTechnical Capital construct drawing on much of the same scholarly work to demonstrate the foundations of social capital in the online experience.

Methodology

A systematic review—different from quantitative meta-analysis—is a qualitative, structured, and repeatable process for collecting and categorizing of the literature to answer a specific research question. A systematic review is a piece of research in its own right and is therefore able to address a research question in a broader sense than a single empirical study by revealing connections across many studies (Baumeister and Leary, 1997). In doing so, future researchers will be able to use this document as a source guide for the topic and its categories, as well as to identify any gaps in the literature that should need to be filled (Petticrew, 2001; Petticrew and Roberts, 2006). This systematic review discovers all the relevant literature concerning online social networking sites’ utility to nurture and cultivate bonding social capital. Specifically, I ask, can online social networking sites be utilized to nurture and cultivate an individual’s bonding social capital? I put forth that online social network sites, are microcosms within the field of digital social capital. And, as such come with their own versions of both bridging and bonding social capital in as far as the participants must know—as Julien (2015) states, how to use the functions (Lee et al., 2014) of these platforms to make use of this capital within these fields. This review treats the terms online social networking sites, and the colloquial term “Social Media” as synonymous and recognizes that both terms are used conversationally and in the literature. The term “Web 2.0” (O’Reilly, 2005) is given this same consideration; all three terms are treated as such in the search methodology.

Research strategy

I used EBSCOhost research interface (full search string in Figure 1) to search 16 databases: Academic Search Complete, Academic Search Premier, Applied Science & Technology Full Text (H.W. Wilson), Business Source Complete, Business Source Premier, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Computer Source, Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text, Professional Development Collection, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, PsycINFO, Regional Business News, Science Reference Center, SocINDEX with Full Text, Sociological Collection. The search was conducted on 1 April 2018. Search limiters included only material published between 1 January 1997 and 31 March 2018, and any articles added to the databases after this date were not included. Only English-language articles were permitted. No limiters were used to disqualify gray material. In all databases, the search terms were limited to the “Abstracts” to ensure highly relevant results. The search string included Field Code “AB,” and Boolean operators to further narrow the search to the relevant content. Known synonyms for social capital and social networking sites were included. Duplicates were removed by EBSCOhost export service, EndNote, and further manual review. In-depth process was carried out by full-text review of articles included/excluded by abstract review (N = 101). The remaining articles (N = 54) were read manually and included in the study. The process flow is discussed below and is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1.

EBSCOhost search string.

Figure 2.

Inclusion/exclusion process workflow diagram.

Discussion of inclusion/exclusion criteria

The eligible literature includes (1) empirical research, and so-called “gray” material, (2) publications in English, (3) discussion of social capital only in the context of online social networking sites, (4) experimental, case study, and survey studies, and (5) specifically addressing the use of online social networking to nurture bonding social capital.

The ineligible literature includes (1) literature concerning the use of online social networking for economic or cultural capital, (2) literature concerning the use of online social networking to promote political or commercial brands, (3) literature concerning mass-media outlets’ promotion and content, (4) literature concerning non-public social networking sites, that is, corporate intranets and enterprise online social network sites, (5) literature that was not obtainable via standard request methods, (6) thesis or dissertation material, (7) reference to bonding social capital or “strong ties” only tangential to the main goal of the research, and (8) long-form books

This study begins with a collection of empirical peer-reviewed studies along with the “gray material” of conference papers. The decision to discard thesis and dissertation material as part of the “gray” was made due to the inability of the author to obtain final versions of the works that were found relevant at the concluding step of the exclusion process. Rather than including some and excluding others, the decision was made to eliminate all thesis material: draft, final, or otherwise. There was no limitation to the types of empirical studies included; as seen in the criteria, all quantitative and qualitative study designs were accepted. Finally, the inclusion criteria saw the narrowing factor of including only articles and studies therein that address the research question specifically. While an article with several, or broader topics may be included, only the studies addressing the research question are aggregated into the results. The body of work regarding the use of bonding social capital for economic/commercial purposes was disregarded, as was the work concerning the use of social capital by mass-media, consumer, or political brands. This choice was made due to the author’s desire to understand the extant literature regarding an individual’s bonding social capital, rather than the bonding social capital generated and used by politicians, governments, and commercial brands. Private online network sites were also excluded. These networks are purpose-specific, customized, and cannot be generalized to global/public online social networking sites. With these criteria defined, the inclusion/exclusion process flow can be viewed in detail in Figure 2.

Creation of the coding framework

Because the goal of a systematic review is to define and implement a process to find and organize the available literature pertaining to the research question, it is inappropriate to create or reuse an existing framework to categorize studies prior to executing the literature discovery process (Baumeister and Leary, 1997). The coding framework used in this document was created as a result of the in-depth analysis of the studies remaining after completing the inclusion/exclusion workflow. The a posteriori framework is detailed in the “Results” section.

Results

After a manual review of the literature remaining after the inclusion/exclusion process outlined in the “Methodology” section and in Figure 2, there were 54 publications from 35 journals and conferences. See Supplemental Appendix A for full table of the accepted literature. The largest grouping of 7 (13%) was found in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. The literature found in this journal focused primarily on the bonding social capital aspect of online social networking sites without any mediating factors.

Coding framework

While many of the studies included in this review have multiple hypotheses and research questions, only those dealing with the primary topic of nurturing bonding social capital are included herein. The 54 publications presented a total of 116 hypotheses and research questions discussing bonding social capital on online social networking sites. The coding framework of the subtopics is found in Table 1 and the category breakdown is given in Table 2.

Table 1.

Categories.

Category	Description
Frequency/intensity of social networking sites use	How often one uses an online social networking site platform, or the features of a platform as a mediating factor of bonding social capital
General social networking sites use	The relationship between generalized use of an online social networking site platform and bonding social capital
Maintaining offline relationships	Maintaining offline bonding social capital utilizing online social networking sites
Cultural differences	Varying nationalities and genders as a mediating factor on the utilization of online social networking sites to nurture bonding social capital
Personal behavior	A person’s self-esteem, self-presentation, self-disclosure, and self-efficacy mediate how online social networking sites are utilized to nurture bonding social capital
Number of friends/followers	The number of friends/followers one has as a mediating factor for the level of bonding social capital on online social networking sites
Use of specific platform functionality	Understanding the use of platform-specific functionality mediates one’s nurture of bonding social capital on various online social networking sites
Information-sharing/privacy/self-disclosure	The extent to which one shares personal information mediates one’s level of bonding social capital on online social networking sites
Education/information-seeking	Use of online social networking sites to informally seek out information from friends/followers, and so on, mediates the level of bonding social capital
Disability communities	Disabled individual communities utilizing online social networking sites to nurture bonding social capital
Migrant/refugee communication	Migrant/refugee communities utilizing online social networking sites to nurture bonding social capital
Use of social networking sites on smartphones	Using online social networking sites as an application on smartphones moderates one’s level of bonding social capital
Intention to use	Examining the relationship of one’s intention to continue using online social networking sites and bonding social capital

Table 2.

Category breakdown.

Category	Studies	Total number of studies (%)
Frequency/intensity of social networking site use	24	20.69
General social networking sites use	19	16.38
Cultural differences	18	15.52
Maintaining offline relationships	16	13.79
Personal behavior	13	11.21
Number of friends/followers	8	6.90
Use of specific platform functionality	5	4.31
Education/information-seeking	4	3.45
Information-sharing/privacy/self-disclosure	3	2.59
Disability communities	2	1.72
Migrant/refugee communication	2	1.72
Use of social networking sites on smartphones	1	0.86
Intention to use	1	0.86

Qualitative versus quantitative

Of the 54 total studies accepted, 46 were quantitative (85%), 7 were qualitative (13%), and 1 was mixed-method (2%). A list of the prolific scholars is given in Table 3.

Table 3.

Most prolific scholars^a.

Author	Studies
Choi, Sejung Marina	3
Ellison, Nicole B.	3
Brandtzaeg, Petter Bae	2
Chu, Shu-Chuan	2
Kwon, Min-Woo	2
Lampe, Cliff	2
McLeod, Douglas M.	2
Phua, Joe	2
Skoric, Marko M.	2
Stefanone, Michael A.	2
Vitak, Jessica	2

The authors listed in this section are not necessarily first-authors on their respective articles.

Discussion of the results

Online social networking sites began in 1997 with SixDegrees.com. Figure 3 demonstrates the release, over time, of the published literature concerning bonding social capital cultivation on the platforms discussed in this article. While online social networking sites became a reality in 1997, the academic research began more than a decade later in 2008. Research into this area was first presented in two conference papers (Stevens et al., 2008; Tufekci, 2008).

Figure 3.

Number of publications over time.

Since those conference papers, 52 articles have been reviewed and accepted. Interestingly, and without any clear instigation, a spike of new research became available in 2014. A majority, 90 (77%) of those studies have revolved around the top five subtopics: Frequency/intensity of social networking sites use, General social networking sites use, Maintaining offline relationships, Cultural differences, and Personal behavior on social networking sites.

Frequency/intensity of social networking sites use

Beginning with the Frequency/intensity group are 24 studies from 15 accepted papers, all quantitative in method. In sum, yes—with some gray area to be sure, the frequency and intensity with which the users of online social networking sites make use of these platforms does make a difference in their cultivation of bonding social capital. Of these 15 papers, 3 did not find an association with intensity/frequency of use of online social networking sites to nurture bonding social capital. One study by Bohn et al. (2014) shows that there can be too much of a good thing when it comes to sharing/posting, and that frequency does matter, but overuse can be harmful to bonding. Also taken to task, the generalization of a few cases that use of online social networking sites by youth is detrimental, and cautions that this may not be so clear-cut (Greenhow and Burton, 2011). Lynn and Witte (2011) too, discuss this effect at a less-specific level playing further into the gray area of this topic of investigation. Duration matters as well. Users spending time on the platforms, and duration of relationships have an impact on their bonding social capital (Ahmad et al., 2016; Stefanone et al., 2011).

It is important to mention that many of these studies showing an association with intensity and frequency of use are also examining other factor(s). Ahmad et al. (2016) examine a user’s motives for using the platform. Bouchillon (2013) examines social trust in concert with bonding social capital. Greenhow and Burton (2011) discuss Socioeconomic Status of students. While Hossain and Veenstra (2016), and Phua and Jin (2011) both take on the topic of using online social networking sites for communication with one’s home country, Lee et al. (2014), and Skoric and Kwan (2011) both scrutinize the intensity/frequency of the use of specific features of online social networking site platforms in nurturing bonding social capital. Indeed, five studies in three papers discuss the use of a particular platform’s features such as “Facebook Groups,” “Likes,” and applications; these studies all demonstrate positive association to bonding social capital. Phua (2009) takes the additional step of analyzing a specific application.

General social networking sites use

There are 19 studies from 14 papers that make up the General social networking sites use subtopic of this review. These studies examine the general use of online social networking sites as a method of nurturing bonding social capital. A total of 12 of these papers were quantitative and 2 qualitative. Most of these studies reported a positive association to bonding social capital through use of online social networking sites, with a broad representation of platforms. Facebook, Instagram, Myspace, Snapchat, and Twitter are all included. Twitter use was found in one study to not be associated with bonding social capital, but was associated with the perception of bonding social capital through the number of followers in another, though no specific determination on the number of followers could be made (Hofer and Aubert, 2013). A topic lightly touched on throughout a few studies, is the difference between genders’ use of online social networking sites to cultivate bonding social capital. One study finding no clear delineation between the genders in general social networking sites use (Liu et al., 2016), but another focusing solely on Snapchat and finding that women do cultivate more bonding social capital than men (Piwek and Joinson, 2016). Consistent in studies dealing with general use, intensity still matters (Bouchillon, 2013; Piwek and Joinson, 2016; Stevens et al., 2008). One study addressed using online social networking sites to interact with business contacts. This study, however, did not find an association with that type of contact and bonding social capital (Skoric et al., 2015).

Maintaining offline relationships

This was the third most researched topic in the review. Of the 8 papers—1 of which (Brandtzaeg et al., 2010) utilized a mixed-method approach—addressing this topic, they included 16 studies. Two studies revealed that online social networking sites use did not necessarily work to maintain offline bonding relationships. Those studies (Brandtzaeg, 2014; Brandtzaeg et al., 2010) both showed that offline relationships were more likely to be maintained by other means than online social networking sites. And, that use of online social networking sites was more apt to creating new bridging/weaker ties than it was to reinforce existing strong bonding relationships. Hossain and Veenstra (2016) and Brandtzaeg (2014) also demonstrated that online social networking sites use was not indicative of offline bonding social relationships.

Cultural differences

Tied with the previous subtopic as the third most researched, Cultural differences had 16 studies from 10 papers. A total of 11 studies focused on the distinctions between online social networking site users of different countries and how each cultivates bonding social capital, specifically, Chinese, French, and Korean users versus their American counterparts (Brown and Michinov, 2017; Choi et al., 2011; Chu and Choi, 2010a, 2010b) and Australian users versus Korean users (Lee et al., 2016). Differences between the various cultures were shown to be significant, but not necessarily favoring one country over another regarding nurturing bonding social capital. Brown and Michinov (2017) showed that there is indeed a difference in the cultivation of bonding social capital between French and American users, but the intensity of those ties varies. Choi et al. (2011) showed equal amounts of bonding social capital on online social networking sites between Korean and American users, whereas Chu and Choi (2010a, 2010b) demonstrate contradicting outcomes between Chinese users and American: one study showing the former with more bonding social capital cultivation, and the other showing the latter with the greater amount. Finally, Australian adolescent users show more bonding social capital than Korean adolescents (Lee et al., 2016).

Personal behavior

Personal behavior-focused studies amount to 13, from 6 papers. In these studies, an online social networking sites user’s personal comportment was significant in their cultivation of bonding social capital. Several aspects of behavior were measured, and most—in these studies were predictors of bonding social capital. Two studies found that the selection of, and act of seeking out friends as well as information-gathering and sharing online were mediating factors (Ellison et al., 2011; Gonen and Aharony, 2017). Jin (2013) examines the social networking site user’s “self-systems.” Specifically, self-efficacy, social presence, self-assertion, and finding that the higher each was the greater the bonding social capital was cultivated. This article also hypothesized that the lower one’s self-esteem was the greater the bonding social capital, this hypothesis was not supported by the data. Gonen and Aharony (2017) explored social exchange theory by hypothesizing that decreased privacy controls would nurture bonding social capital, but in fact disproving their hypothesis, found the opposite, that increasing privacy controls nurtured bonding social capital.

Other categories

The remaining subtopics: Number of friends/followers, Use of specific platform functionality (discussed above with Frequency and General social networking sites use), Information-sharing/privacy/self-disclosure, Education/information-seeking, Disability communities, Migrant/refugee communication, Use of social networking sites on smartphones, and Intention to use account for the remaining 26 (23%) studies from 18 papers. Five studies show that the number of friends or followers does matter, but there is no specific minimum amount or limit to those numbers (Bohn et al., 2014; Ellison et al., 2011; Gonen and Aharony, 2017; Hofer and Aubert, 2013; Rui et al., 2014). Two timely subtopics, Information-sharing/Privacy/Self-disclosure and Migrant/refugee communication make appearances in 6 studies from 6 papers. All 3 studies regarding information-sharing and privacy control show that the user’s disclosure of information is positively associated with bonding social capital (Gonen and Aharony, 2017; Hossain and Veenstra, 2016; Su and Chan, 2017). Both studies of Migrant/Refugee communication were qualitative, and both showed that these communities use, specifically, Facebook and Skype to maintain bonding social capital with their contacts in home countries (Dekker and Engbersen, 2014; Lášticová, 2014).

Conclusion

In sum, of the 116 studies reviewed for this article, 85 (73%) were found to support in the affirmative this article’s research question. Given these numbers and the overall theme of the results in the studies, online social networking sites can be utilized to nurture and cultivate an individual’s bonding social capital. There are, however, caveats to this answer. While many of these studies do specifically address the use of social networking sites to nurture and cultivate bonding social capital, some judgment calls were required with studies that do address the topic at hand, but only tangentially. The same with those hypotheses that were not supported in their respective studies, but do not necessarily disqualify the concept of this study. Simply stated, the 85 confirmed hypotheses and research questions is merely a point of reference summing up this research, and the studies reviewed must be taken on their own merits and within the contexts in which they conducted their work.

While this research does not update any previous systematic literature reviews (none were found to exist) on the topic of social networking sites and bonding social capital, it does provide a useful roadmap with which to navigate the work that has been done, especially regarding the coding framework. The 13 items in this list are comprehensive as to the categories of the work that has been done in this area. Some, are more pointed (Cultural differences, and Disability studies) but useful to the specialized areas of social research. Others are broad and can be generalized to larger cohorts in the social networking sites arena: General social networking sites user, Frequency and intensity of use, as well as Maintaining offline relationships. These categories should assist any future researcher in focusing on the specific areas of the literature applicable to their work. Establishing a conceptualization and operationalization of social capital in each of its forms within the context of online social networking sites, and more generally the Internet, similar to boyd and Ellison’s (2007), Ellison and boyd (2013) work in the realm of online social networking sites, would benefit future scholarship.

By generalizing that there is support for the research question, it brings to light the obvious rhetorical follow-up: why does it matter? As I have discussed earlier, social capital, and bonding social capital, specifically, matter to the functioning of our society. Bonding social capital is indeed, “the glue,” of that society (Putnam, 2001). Utilizing these social networking site platforms to seek out and to nurture this capital, enables society to expand the scope of these activities and no doubt increases the velocity at which these activities can transpire. No longer do we have to live near someone, and we don’t have to wait to receive a letter or a telephone call to learn the status of our relationships. These elements by themselves point to the powerful nature of these platforms and their usefulness in creating social capital of all forms. A person who cannot leave their home due to disability can hold conversations and make contacts globally, and a migrant can maintain relationships with friends and family in their home countries. Moreover, it appears that social networking sites do augment and do not detract from or inhibit a person’s offline socialization as was feared at the birth of the Internet. If used prosocially, the benefits from utilizing these networks and those that have not yet been created, could be limitless. However, cultivating bonding social capital within the realms of online social networking sites could have its drawbacks, and certainly a watchful eye should be kept on the effects of exactly what makes these networks useful. The nature of these platforms allows for the globalization of ideas (both subjectively “good” and “bad”) that were once unable to organize and create bonding social capital with like-minded individuals at scale. Lest this review be seen as a pollyannaish account of the phenomenon, as several studies examine, the hate-speech generated (Ben-David and Matamoros-Fernández, 2016; Mondal et al., 2017; Oksanen et al., 2014; Silva et al., 2016), and misinformation spread (Benham et al., 2012; Chen et al., 2015; Del Vicario et al., 2016; Shu et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2016) within and externally to these networks can have a detrimental, and at the very least interruptive impact on the offline world. Addressing the latter, Kavanagh and Rich (2018) perform a comprehensive analysis and build a robust research agenda on the topics of information literacy, misinformation, and the “changes in the information system” of which online social networking sites are a cornerstone.

Limitations

Future researchers making use of the process outlined herein will find it to be reliable not only to replicate the results heretofore, but to discover the new literature. The validity of the method used to categorize the studies will be dependent on the researcher’s end-goals or questions. I sought to identify what topics have been studied and the depth of the pool of research within each of those topics. Therefore, the resulting data set returned by the protocol will not change, but the output of categorizing and coding the data will depend on the research question.

Supplemental Material

TABLE_4_FINAL_v5_REFERENCES_SLR_SNS_Nurture_Social_Capital_1 – Supplemental material for The use of online social networking sites to nurture and cultivate bonding social capital: A systematic review of the literature from 1997 to 2018

Supplemental material, TABLE_4_FINAL_v5_REFERENCES_SLR_SNS_Nurture_Social_Capital_1 for The use of online social networking sites to nurture and cultivate bonding social capital: A systematic review of the literature from 1997 to 2018 by Joshua R. Williams in New Media & Society

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Dr. Monita Mungo, PhD my spirit guide, teacher, friend, and undying supporter throughout the process of creating this document. I appreciate you more than you know. Thank you.

Dr. Mark Sherry, PhD EndNote Jedi Master and Literature Review Inspirer. Thank you.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Joshua R. Williams

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author biography

Joshua R. Williams is an incoming graduate student at The University of Toledo and twenty-year veteran of the information technology industry. He is exploring social capital, locus of control, and worry behavior in various contexts.

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