"Connecting" and "disconnecting" with civic life: Patterns of Internet useand the production of social capital

This article explores the relationship between Internet use and the individ ual-level production of serial capital. To do so, the authors adopt a motiv ational perspective to distinguish among types of Internet use when examini ng the factors predicting civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and life c ontentment. The predictive power of new media use is then analyzed relative to key demographic, contextual, and traditional media use variables using the 1999 DDB Life Style Study. Although the size of associations is general ly small, the data suggest that informational uses of the Internet are posi tively related to individual differences in the production of social capita l, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic i ndicators. Analyses within subsamples defined by generational age breaks fu rther suggest that social capital production is related to Internet use amo ng Generation X, while it is tied to television use among Baby Boomers cmd newspaper use among members of the Civic Generation. The possibility of lif e cycle and cohort effects is discussed.