In contrast to popular press coverage which has primarily focused on negative
outcomes of Facebook use stemming from users’ misconceptions about the nature of
their online audience, we are interested in situations in which the intended audience
for the profile (such as well-meaning peers and friends) and the actual audience are
aligned. We use Facebook as a research context in order to determine whether offline
social capital can be generated by online tools. The results of our study show that
Facebook use among college-age respondents was significantly associated with measures
of social capital.