IT and Social Capital

It could be argued that IT is making social capital more important. First, if Information Technology is making locality less important, then the ties that bind any community together, physical or otherwise, become more valued. In absence of the common understanding that where one lives is automatically a bona fide community, and one is automatically a member of that community, bonds of mutual reciprocity become important to assert that a geographic grouping is, in fact, a community. As our society becomes more and more and networked society, in both the technical and social sense of the word, networks must be reinforced with trust. Computer networks make it easier for people to create social capital.

Allan Friedman
January, 2002