تاثير استفاده از اينترنت بر سرمايه اجتماعي و انساني (مطالعه موردي دانشجويان دانشگاه تهران)

The Impact of Using Internet on Social and Human Capital: A Case Study of University Students in Tehran

We live in a world full of dramatic changes and varying life styles. Internet is one of the phenomena that have had a large and direct effect on modern society. As we know, the users ofinfonnation technology (IT) are growing tremendously and since the consequences of the application of internet are not consistent across different cultural, social, economical and political settings, it is of utmost significance to explore the issue and uncover the unidentified aspects. Having acknowledged the fact that social capital and human capital are the major software part of development of any society, the main aim of this research is to add to the current knowledge and information regarding the effects of using internet and IT on social capital and human capital net. In this research, we studied and evaluated social capital of human net against such concepts as trust, support and participation. Human net capital was examined against such parameters as the number of users of the internet, the frequency of using the internet, the importance of using it and the availability of the internet services for users. The basic assumptions of this research are as follows: The patterns of internet use have a positive relationship with rate of social capital net. Also, a similar relationship must hold true between internet use and the rate of human capital net. These assumptions were tested through a survey method. The statistical population comprised of BA, MA, and Ph.D. students of Tehran University in four disciplines; human sciences, base sciences, engineering and arts. The sample size was 400. The sample was selected based on a stratified sampling. The data collected via a questionnaire and verbal interview. The results indicate that the higher the use of the internet, the more the rate of the social capital. In short, thc basic assumptions of the research were strongly aproved.