Volume 5

V5 N2 Pages 14-28

April 2012


Social Networking Systems and Campus Life


Erika Sgambato
Eastern Connecticut State University
Willimantic, CT USA

Doncho Petkov
Eastern Connecticut State University
Willimantic, CT USA

Robert Wolf
Eastern Connecticut State University
Willimantic, CT USA

Abstract: Social networking sites such as Facebook foster a sense of community in campus life. This technology has the potential to increase social capital and connectivity among students if properly managed. It also may raise the self-esteem and sociability of individual students, which increases the rate of social interaction amongst the entire student body. In order to investigate these beliefs in the context of student life, a multidimensional questionnaire was distributed to both residential and non-residential undergraduate students of a public liberal arts university in the Northeast. The survey instrument is based on a questionnaire used by Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe in a 2007 paper which was adapted however to the needs of this study. The instrument measures several constructs including bridging and bonding social capital, referring to the resources accumulated through the relationships between people. By limiting the administration of the questionnaire to juniors and seniors, we wanted to involve students who have had sufficient experience with campus life. The practical contribution of the research reveals aspects of social networks usage in a particular university environment as that has a value for improvement of the utilization of social networking sites in campus life. The theoretical value of the partial replication of a previous research on a similar topic is in providing validation for its model of variables and in demonstrating how the pace of changes in social networking sites over the last four years affects student perceptions about their impact.

Keywords: campus life, community informatics, Facebook, Social Capital, social networking sites

Download this article: JISAR - V5 N2 Page 14.pdf


Recommended Citation: Sgambato, E., Petkov, D., Wolf, R. (2012). Social Networking Systems and Campus Life. Journal of Information Systems Applied Research, 5(2) pp 14-28. http://jisar.org/2012-5/ ISSN: 1946-1836. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of CONISAR 2011)