Social network services and their effects on network social capital: an instrumental variables approach

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between social network services and network social capital while adopting an instrumental variables approach. This study includes a simple random sample of 491 respondents gathered through a cross-sectional survey in South Korea. The results show that users of social network services were higher in their network social capital in comparison with non-users of social network services. The results further suggest that it is high intensity users rather than low intensity users who are higher in network social capital than non-users of social network services. The current study contributes to the literature as it empirically investigates the association between social network services and network social capital, while including non-users of social network and tackling the possible endogeneity problem of the usage of social network services.