Page 25 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

transition experiences, including cross-cultural transitions. They theorized that transition experiences (e.g., sojourn) may lead to social disruptions (e.g., loss of social support), and that CMC may play a role in facilitating both perceived and enacted social support. They argued that CMC-based social support may mitigate possible negative transition outcomes (e.g., poorer adjustment). A cross- sectional study of Cemalcilar, Falbo, and Stapleton (2005) showed that CMC use of international students with the home-country network facilitated perceived social support, which, in turn, enhanced psychological adjustment. Moreover, the findings of Hofhuis et al.’s (2019) cross-sectional study also showed that SNS contacts with the host and the home-country relations were positively associated with sojourners’ online social support. Looking at previous studies on SNS use and perceived social support among individuals from the general population, findings yielded inconsistent results (Li et al., 2015; Meng, Martinez, Holmstrom, Chung, & Cox, 2017). Several studies showed that SNS use is positively associated with perceived social support (Burke & Kraut, 2016; Olson, Liu, & Shultz, 2012; Meng et al., 2017; Seo, Kim, & Yang, 2016). However, there were studies that failed to establish the association of SNS use and perceived social support (Li et al., 2015; Seo, Harn, Ebrahim, & Aldana, 2016). The inconsistencies in previous findings were attributed to the diverse ways SNS use was measured. Informed by the study of Burke and Kraut (2016), which argued that it is active communication with significant others on SNS that is associated with perceived social support, in this dissertation, I defined SNS use as (active) interactions with significant others in their networks.
Given the limitations of previous studies, this dissertation aims to contribute to existing theorizing by comparing the relative impact of three types of social interactions (i.e., face-to-face interaction with the host-country network, SNS interactions with the host- and the home-country networks) on perceived social support (Chapter 2).
Perceived Social Support Predicting Psychological Adjustment. Thus far, the various models and theories presented are consistent in predicting the positive influence of perceived social support on psychological adjustment (Adelman, 1988; Berry, 2006; Mikal et al., 2013; Ward et al., 2001). Moreover, previous research on cross-cultural adjustment provided strong support for this prediction (Adelman, 1988; Berry, 2006; Cemalcilar, 2008; Li et al., 2015; Mikal & Grace, 2012; Mikal et al., 2013; Trepte & Scharkow, 2016; Ward et al., 2001; Ye, 2006).
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