Exploring the Impact of Varying ChatGPT Usage Patterns on Social Capital Accumulation Among College Students

The rapid development of AI has led to the ubiquitous integration of smart tools like ChatGPT in higher education. In this paper, a hybrid approach is used to investigate the different effects of the usage patterns of intelligent tools on university students. The results show that the tool use enhances the social capital accumulation through the enhancement of the weak relation relationship, but the technology dependence results in the shallow society. Structural equation modeling verifies the chain mediation effect of utilization pattern and quality of capital accumulation. The research provides the theory foundation for the training of university students' social ability in the age of intelligent tools. It is proposed to build a "human-machine cooperative" curriculum system, and to set up a social compensation system for the utilization of digital tools.