Page 132 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

Chapter 2: Social Interactions, Perceived Social Support, and Psychological Adjustment
Key Finding 1: In the long-term, SNS interaction with the host-country network was detrimental to sojourners’ psychological adjustment because it undermined perceived social support, which, in turn, exacerbated depressive symptoms in the short- and the long-term.
Key Finding 2: Regular face-to-face interactions with the host-country network sustained perceived social support, contributing to better psychological adjustment.
Key Finding 3: In the short-term, better psychological adjustment increased perceived social support. In turn, perceived social support increased SNS interaction with the host-country network, both in the short- and the long-term.
Chapter 2 describes a longitudinal panel model study that aimed to investigate the relative impacts of social interactions (face-to-face interaction with the host-country network, and SNS interactions with the host- and home-country networks) on perceived social support (a positive subjective outcome), and, in turn, its impact on psychological adjustment. Based on previous studies, psychological adjustment was conceptualized in terms of depressive symptoms (Ward et al., 2001; Zhang & Goodson, 2011). Thus, lower depressive symptoms indicated greater psychological adjustment. The results showed that SNS interaction with the host-country network lowered perceived social support in the long-term. Meanwhile, face-to-face interactions with the host-country network increased perceived social support in the short-term, consistent with previous findings (Adelman, 1988; Hechanova-Alampay, Beehr, Christiansen, & Van Horn, 2002; Smith & Khawaja, 2011). The results also revealed that perceived social support increased SNS interaction with the host-country both in the short- and the long- term. Moreover, perceived social support decreased depressive symptoms in the long-term. In the short-term, perceived social support and depressive symptoms negatively reinforced each other. SNS interactions with the home-country network was not associated with perceived social support. These findings imply that regular face-to-face interactions with the host-country network are important to sustain perceived social support among sojourners. SNS interaction with the host-country
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