Social Networking and Extending Social Capacity

This paper explores the phenomenon of social networking that is changing social structures and communication practices around the globe. It draws parallels with the social structures that emerged in the industrial revolution (such as the social clubs, unions and cooperative societies) and discusses some of the far reaching impacts the current phenomenon is having on society: The paper presents the concepts of Social Capacity representing the number and quality of how many people it is possible to know. The paper argues that social networking technology can change people’s social capacity. This is likely to be an increasingly important research area for the information systems discipline as technology supported social networking activity becomes more ubiquitous.