Page 152 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

with host-country nationals than co-nationals (Hechanova-Alampay et al., 2002; Sleeman, Lang, & Lemon, 2016). Such information could be useful in planning strategies on how to help international students adjust better in the host country. Moreover, culture could be relevant in explaining why international students do not seek social support from their home country. According to Smith and Khawaja (2011), among Asian cultures, emotional control (or the ability to handle emotional distress on your own) is highly valued (Smith & Khawaja, 2011). For this reason, Asian international students might choose to keep their concerns from the home-country network to avoid being perceived as a failure in managing their emotions. Additionally, beyond national identities, cultural orientations such as interdependent versus independent self-construal, or collectivist versus individualist orientations, could also make a difference in perceived social support. Shelton, Wang, and Zhu (2017) argued that social support could prove to be more beneficial for students with interdependent self-construal. Their findings provide further support to the growing literature showing stronger associations between social support and well-being among individuals from collectivist countries compared to those from individualist countries (Shelton et al., 2017). Thus, it might be relevant for future studies to scrutinize the conceptualizations of culture and cultural factors (such as national identity, cultural orientations, cultural distance, etc.), and investigate how they play a role in SNS communication and adjustment.
The conceptualization of social interactions also lacked nuance in terms of the valence of interactions. The studies in this dissertation did not differentiate between positive and negative types of interactions. Future studies could look into how certain types of interactions might differ in terms of impact on subjective outcomes. I also limited my investigation to two possible subjective outcomes (i.e., perceived social support and homesickness) as intervening variables. Future studies should look at other possible intervening variables (e.g., social connectedness, social and cultural identities, skills acquisition, bridging social capital, etc.) that mediate the relation between social interactions and adjustment. It is also important to link SNS social interactions and subjective outcomes to the attainment of the specific goals of sojourn. For instance, academic adjustment for student sojourners, as well as work adjustment and job satisfaction for international employees/expatriates (Bierwiaczonek & Waldzus, 2016).
Additionally, the conceptualization of psychological adjustment was limited to depressive symptoms in this dissertation. Although this was consistent with previous conceptualizations in several studies on sojourners’ adjustment (Smith
150 Chapter 6