Page 68 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment
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                                Reciprocal associations of social interactions and homesickness
When examining the potential effects of types of social interactions on homesickness, it may be relevant to look at how homesickness may also impact social interactions (English et al., 2012). Not only does social interaction impact homesickness, people who feel homesick are also inclined to seek company (English et al., 2012; Furnham, 2005). This implies that a homesick individual is more likely to have FtF interactions with the host-country network . However, there were contradicting findings showing that homesick individuals avoid social situations and tend to withdraw even from enjoyable activities (Van Tilburg, 2005). Thus, we asked:
RQ4: What is the impact of homesickness on FtF interaction with the host-country network?
When it comes to Facebook interactions, several models hypothesized that
media effects are transactional (Slater, 2015; Valkenburg, Peter, & Walther, 2016). This transactional feature of media effects predicts paths both from media use (e.g., Facebook use) to outcomes (e.g., homesickness), and from these outcomes to media use. Thus, it is possible that homesickness has a reciprocal effect on Facebook use. The reciprocal effects of media use and outcomes were conceptualized as dynamic, such that there is a possibility for effects to “grow out of control” or to reach extreme levels if left unchecked, or may tend toward homeostasis (Slater, 2015, p. 3).
Given the limited studies on how homesickness might impact Facebook interaction with the host- and the home-country networks, we posed the following research questions:
RQ5: What is the impact of homesickness on Facebook interaction with the host- country network?
RQ6: What is the impact of homesickness on Facebook interaction with the home- country network?
Reciprocal associations of homesickness and sociocultural adjustment
According to Stroebe et al. (2015b), homesickness is fundamentally a separation phenomenon as a consequence of leaving home. It should be clearly delineated from new place adjustment experiences. Homesickness is a negative psychological state due to separation from home (home factor), whereas adjustment is a reaction to “the demands that are made on the person in the new environment (new place factor)” (Stroebe et al., 2015b, p. 4). Homesickness and adjustment
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