How does the Internet affect social capital? Do the communication possibilities of the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement interpersonal contact, participation, and community commitment? Our evidence comes from a 1998 survey of 39,211 visitors to the National Geographic Society website, one of the first large-scale web surveys. We find that people's interaction online supplements their face-to-face and telephone communication, without increasing or decreasing it. However, Internet use is associated with increased participation in voluntary organizations and politics. Further support for this effect is the positive association between offline and online participation in voluntary organizations and politics. Internet use is associated with a sense of online community, in general and with kin. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the Internet is becoming normalized as it is incorporated into the routine practices of everyday life.

We report an empirical study of a synchronous messaging application with group-oriented functionality designed to support teams in the workplace. In particular, the tool supports group chat windows that allow members of a group to communicate with text that persists for about a day. We describe the experience of 6 globally-distributed work groups who used the tool over a period of 17 months. An analysis of use shows that the group functionality was used primarily for bursts of synchronous conversations and occasional asynchronous exchanges. The content was primarily focused on work tasks, and negotiating availability, with a smattering of non-work topics and humor. Nearly all groups were remarkably similar in the content of their group chat, although the research group chatted far more frequently than the others. We conclude with suggestions for future research, and a discussion of the place of team-oriented synchronous messaging tools in the workplace.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) routinely attract millions of players but little empirical data is available to assess their players ’ social experiences. In this paper, we use longitudinal data collected directly from the game to examine play and grouping patterns in one of the largest MMOGs: World of Warcraft. Our observations show that the prevalence and extent of social activities in MMOGs might have been previously over-estimated, and that gaming communities face important challenges affecting their cohesion and eventual longevity. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of future games and other online social spaces.

While questions about social cohesion lie at the core of our discipline, definitions are often vague and difficult to operationalize. We link research on social cohesion and social embeddedness by developing a conception of structural cohesion based on network nodeconnectivity. Structural cohesion is defined as the minimum number of actors who, if removed from a group, would disconnect the group. A structural dimension of embeddedness can then be defined through the hierarchical nesting of these cohesive structures. We demonstrate the empirical applicability of our conception of nestedness in two dramatically different substantive settings and discuss additional theoretical implications with reference to a wide array of substantive fields. "...social solidarity is a wholly moral phenomenon which by itself is not amenable to exact observation and especially not to measurement." (Durkheim, (1893 [1984], p.24) "The social structure [of the dyad] rests immediately on the one and on the other of the two, and the secession of either would destroy the whole. ... As soon, however, as there is a sociation of three, a group continues to exist even in case one of the members drops out." (Simmel (1908 [1950], p. 123)

In this paper, we review and analyze the emerging network paradigm in organizational research. We begin with a conventional review of recent research organized around recognized research streams. Next, we analyze this research, developing a set of dimensions along which network studies vary, including direction of causality, levels of analysis, explanatory goals, and explanatory mechanisms. We use the latter two dimensions to construct a 2-by-2 table cross-classifying studies of network consequences into four canonical types: structural social capital, social access to resources, contagion, and environmental shaping. We note the rise in popularity of studies with a greater sense of agency than was traditional in network research.

This paper attempts to explain international and inter-personal differences in subjective well-being over the final fifth of the twentieth century. The empirical work makes use of data from three waves of the World Values survey covering about fifty different countries. The analysis proceeds in stages. First there is a brief review of some reasons for giving a key role to subjective measures of well-being. This is followed by a survey of earlier empirical studies, a description of the main variables used, a report of results and tests, and discussion of the links among social capital, education, income and well-being. The main innovation of the paper, relative to earlier studies of subjective well-being, lies in its use of large international samples of data combining individual and societal level variables, thus permitting the simultaneous identification of individual-level and societal-level determinants of well-being. This is particularly useful in identifying the direct and indirect linkages between social capital and well-being.

We are grateful to Melissa Eccleston, Daniel Michalow, and Vladimir Novakovski, for research assistance, and to

We analyze collaborative play in an online video game, World of Warcraft, the most popular personal computer game in the United States, with significant markets in Asia and Europe. Based on an immersive ethnographic study, we describe how the social organization of the game and player culture affect players ’ enjoyment and learning of the game. We discovered that play is characterized by a multiplicity of collaborations from brief informal encounters to highly organized play in structured groups. The variety of collaborations makes the game more fun and provides rich learning opportunities. We contrast these varied collaborations, including those with strangers, to the “gold standard ” of Gemeinschaft-like communities of close relations in tightknit groups. We suggest populations for whom similar games could be designed.

Online communities depend upon the commitment and voluntary participation of their members. Community design—site navigation, community structure and features, and organizational policies—is critical in this regard. Community design affects how people can interact, the information they receive about one another and the community, and how they can participate in community activities. We argue that the constraints and opportunities inherent in online community design influence how people become attached to the community and whether they are willing to expend effort on its behalf. We examine two theories of group attachment and link these theories with design decisions for online communities. Common identity theory makes predictions about the causes and consequences of people’s attachment to the group as a whole. Common bond theory makes predictions about the causes and consequences of people’s attachment to individual group members. We review causes of common identity and common bond, and show how they result in different kinds of attachment and group outcomes. We then show how design decisions, such as those focused on recruiting newcomers versus retaining existing members, constraining or promoting off-topic discussion, and limiting group size or allowing uncontrolled growth, can lead to common identity or interpersonal bonds among community members, and consequently to different levels and forms of community participation by those so motivated.

Policy decisions at the organizational, corporate, and governmental levels should be more heavily influenced by issues related to well-being––people’s evaluations and feelings about their lives. Domestic policy currently focuses heavily on economic outcomes, although economic indicators omit, and even mislead about, much of what society values. We show that economic indicators have many shortcomings, and that measures of well-being point to important conclusions that are not apparent from economic indicators alone. For example, although economic output has risen steeply over the past decades, there has been no rise in life satisfaction during this period, and there has been a substantial increase in depression and distrust. We argue that economic indicators were extremely important in the early stages of economic development, when the fulfillment of basic needs was the main issue. As societies grow wealthy,