Do rich teens get richer? Facebook use and the link between offline and online social capital among Palestinian youth in Israel

ABSTRACT

Studies have shown that using social networking sites contributes to social capital. This study investigated the association between specific features of Facebook and online social capital. Two contrasting hypothesis were tested. The first posits that the rich get richer, meaning that the creation of social capital online reflects the stock of offline resources already available. In contrast, the compensation hypothesis argues that disadvantaged ethnic minorities are more likely to use social media to compensate for their lack of social capital offline. We tested these two theories among a representative sample of Palestinian teenagers (N = 567). While we found no gender differences in the use of Facebook’s features, our results highlight the positive correlation between the use of active and passive communication features and perceived social capital online. Moreover, the results support the rich-get-richer model; in that, even among this socially disadvantaged group, the youngsters who already had a store of social capital offline benefitted more from using Facebook.

KEYWORDS:

• Computer-mediated communication
• social media
• social networking
• young people
• social capital
• Facebook features
• youth
• rich-get-richer model

Notes on contributors

Rana Abbas holds a Ph.D. degree in Sociology from the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research interests are social media and social capital, youth, and cyber victimization [email: [email protected]].

Gustavo Mesch is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Haifa, Israel. His research interests are Internet and Society, social media and social capital, and cybercrime [email: [email protected]].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.