The Social Capital of Internet Users – A Diagnosis of Diversity

Social capital is considered from at least several viewpoints – as trust, institutions acting as mediators between the state and the individual, and a network of the individual’s relationships. In the third approach, it can be also called the individual social capital. In the discussed research, it was measured using the resource generator based on the concept of T.Snijders. The research carried out among 369 respondents aged 18 – 34, who were also Internet users and had at least secondary education, allowed to diagnose the level of their individual social capital and identify diversifying factors. Primarily, the analysis revealed that greater Internet experience and its more intensive use are linked with a higher level of individual social capital. These factors had more importance than sociodemographic characteristics – age, sex or the level of education