Social Capital in Digitally Mediated Communities: Conditional Associations with Depressive Mood

This study examined whether engagement with different online community environments moderates the association between social capital and depressive mood.

Using the 2023 Korea Social Integration Survey (n=8,221), a nationally representative survey conducted by the Korea Institute of Public Administration, social capital was measured as an index of participation in 9 types of voluntary and community organizations, and depressive mood was assessed using a single-item measure of day-to-day emotional distress. Ordinary least squares regression models with interaction terms were used to determine whether the association between social capital and depressive mood varied across 3 types of online community environments: messenger services, social networking services (SNS), and membership-based online communities.

Higher levels of social capital were associated with higher levels of depressive mood (b=0.327), contrary to the conventional assumption that social participation is uniformly beneficial. Interaction analyses indicated that this association varied across online community environments. Frequent messenger service use was associated with a weaker positive association between social capital and depressive mood (b=-0.084), whereas SNS use showed a smaller and more conditional moderating effect (b=-0.042). Use of membership-based online communities was not a statistically significant moderator.

The mental health implications of social participation depend on how social engagement is organized across offline and online contexts. Relationally oriented digital environments, particularly messenger services, may attenuate the emotional burden associated with extensive social participation. These findings underscore the need to consider digitally mediated community environments in public mental health research and interventions.