Our first dimension of social capital—bridging—assessed the extent to which
participants were integrated into the MSU community, their willingness to support
the community, and the extent to which these experiences broadened their social
horizons or worldview. Our findings suggest that certain kinds of Facebook use
(articulated by our Facebook intensityitems) can help students accumulate and
maintain bridging social capital. This form of social capital—which is closely linked
to the notion of ‘‘weak ties’’—seems well-suited to social software applications, as
suggested by Donath and boyd (2004), because it enables users to maintain such ties
cheaply and easily.