This study examines, from a qualitative perspective, the optimistic approaches prevailing in the literature regarding the potential of social media to contribute to social capital and offers a critical assessment. Core components of social capital—trust, reciprocity, network ties, and cooperation—are becoming increasingly visible within social media environments. However, this growing visibility does not always translate into durable and sustainable capital accumulation; in many cases, it remains at the level of superficial relationships. A critical review of the literature indicates that social media can contribute to social capital to a certain extent through information sharing and the expansion of weak ties; yet structural problems such as unverified information, digital inequalities, and polarization substantially limit this contribution. Moreover, the negative effects of social media platforms—designed according to the logic of the attention economy and surveillance capitalism—on users’ capacities for attention, empathy, and collective problem-solving further complicate the relationship between social media and social capital.

This study addresses the role of social media in the formation of social capital within the framework of a qualitative reality inquiry, aiming to evaluate the limits of overly optimistic assumptions in the field and to introduce a more balanced critical perspective to the literature. Social media platforms can also be considered network economies operating according to market logic. Within the framework of network externalities, as the number of users joining a platform increases, the platform’s reach and visibility value rises, and each additional user generates extra utility for others. However, this structural increase in value does not guarantee a simultaneous increase in social capital components such as trust, reciprocity, and shared meaning. Therefore, social media networks emerge as distinctive digital environments that can generate economic value without necessarily producing social capital.

Rather than producing new field data, the study contributes to the theoretical gap in the literature by critically reviewing the social media–social capital scholarship and conceptually discussing the tensions between digital visibility and relational and cognitive depth..