to what end? Are we engaging in online interactions in ways that will help kids like Andy access higher education and achieve his dream of becoming a music teacher? Are the hundreds of hours many of us spend on social media and online gaming a waste of time? Or are there some benefits to these activities?

Research in this area is still nascent in many ways, but some scholarship suggests that certain uses of Facebook can help individuals build social capital (e.g., [ 2, 3])—especially bridging social capital. Facebook is well suited to facilitating bridging social capital because it lowers the barriers for interacting with weak ties. For example, we are able to keep in touch with high school friends with whom we otherwise would have lost touch, or interact with our Facebook friends’ social connections by commenting on a mutual friend’s post. These “friends of friends” are especially likely to be bridging ties and sources of novel information and different worldviews.

Our research in this area, together with that of other collaborators, has focused on high school students’ use of social media in the context of college access. Higher education comes with a variety of benefits for individuals and society. For instance, college graduates earn more and have more job stability than those without college degrees. However, college access is not equitably distributed. Students who are poor, from families where neither parent graduated college, or who are black, Latino, or Native American are less likely to apply for, attend, and successfully graduate than peers who are white, wealthier, or have college-educated parents.

These characteristics are not
unrelated, of course. Historically, one
of the biggest barriers for low-income
students has been access to information
about college: how to navigate the
application process, where to apply,
how financial aid really works. This is
partly because low-income students
are more likely to be potential first-
generation students, with parents who
are less able to provide information
about college or less likely to have
experience navigating the arcane
process of college admissions. First-
generation students do not have the
same access to information about
college in the home as the children
of college graduates, and their social
networks are also less likely to be
populated with individuals who have
useful information to share about
college life. Similarly, low-income
students are less likely to encounter
information about college in their
everyday lives because they are more
likely to attend under-resourced
high schools and fewer of their older
relatives, siblings, and peers attend
college.

Ironically, today more information about college is online than ever before, theoretically lowering the barriers to accessing this information.

However, the vast amount of
information about college that is
available online makes managing,
organizing, and processing that
information a substantial challenge.
Recent interventions coordinated
through H&R Block [ 4] and the
College Board [ 5] have illustrated
the effectiveness of personalized
information in encouraging students to
attend college and in helping students
make informed decisions about where
to apply and where to attend. In both
interventions, students received
information about the costs of college
based on their specific circumstances,
reducing some of the ambiguity in
the college-choice process. The next
challenge for increasing access to
post-secondary education will be
scaling these personalized information
interventions. Online tools—services
that enable young people to access
personalized information and that
help connect them with others who P H
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