Does Facebook Increase Social Capital and Improve Interpersonal Relationships?

I chose to write about the Facebook/social captial topic that seems to be popular. It is interesting that most young people take the side that facebook definitely increases social capital and that it is mostly a few older people who do not like technolgy that go against it. But from what I have seen it seems that a vast majority of people see the benefits of Facebook no matter their age.

In the article "Does facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance It?" by Lisa Selin Davis, she brings up some interesting ways that facebook has helped her reconnect with old friends she would not otherwise have been able to. She starts out the article talking about her friend Jenny who would never return her calls, but would contact her on Facebook. And then they made plans to meet for lunch all over facebook. The article brings up an interesting point how before the internet people would purposefully call when they knew the person would not be home in order to leave a message on the machine. Now Facebook is an advanced version of that in a way, people can relay messages without having to feel trapped talking on the phone. This is clearly an examply of how Facebook improved this ladies relatinonship to her friend.

Now there are also claims that Facebook will increase your social capital in many ways but where are the examples? I tried doing research but it is hard to do a google search to find an article on someone who got a job through a friend on facebook. So the best I could do is ask friends and go off of my own experience with Facebook social capital. I have a friend who has a friend on her page who is always selling stuff and posting notes about it on facebook. This can work as a benefit on both sides, for him to find someone to buy and for the person who is looking to buy. This is a good example of finding social capital through facebook. Also something that happened in my own life, my supervisor at work saw a picture of me tagged on one of her friend's pages. Once she talked to me about our mutual acquiantance she was much more friendly to me and I had a much easier work experience. Facebook was completely responsible for this because never in a million years would we have found that mutual friend through our normal conversation. SOCIAL CAPITAL!