Connection Strategies: Relationship Formation and Maintenance on Social Network Sites.

This manuscript explores the ways in which Facebook, a social network site (SNS) popular with college students, aids young adults in forming and maintaining friendship networks. Specifically, we examine the specific ways in which students are using Facebook to interact with others on campus, ranging from complete strangers to friends. Using data from a survey of X University undergraduates (N=481) fielded in April 2007, we find three distinct suites of Facebook-related communication behavior: Initiating, Maintaining, and Information-Seeking, and that only Information-Seeking behavior predicts perceived bridging social capital. We argue that the technical and social affordances of SNSs enable relationships to form by serving some of the same functions typically performed by face-to-face communication among those who interact with one another within shared physical spaces. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]