Page 42 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

Theoretical Background
Interactions, support, and adjustment of sojourners
Sojourners, also called short-term or temporary migrants, are expected to return to their home country once the purpose of stay has been achieved (Dustmann, 1999; Ward et al., 2001). Temporary migration entails cross-cultural transition experiences that could impact psychological adjustment (Mikal, Rice, Abeyta, & De Vilbiss, 2013). Often, a challenge in cross-cultural transitions is to achieve effective psychological adjustment in the new context (Berry, 2006). Psychological adjustment, which refers to optimal psychological functioning or well-being, involves coping with stress and depression (Ward et al., 2001). During temporary migration, intercultural interactions influence coping strategies (e.g., social support) which in turn affect adjustment. Earlier models of sojourners’ adjustment emphasized the importance of FtF communication in facilitating social support (Adelman, 1988; Ward et al., 2001). Moreover, earlier studies often described access to social support of sojourners being mostly limited to the host-country network (Ward et al., 2001).
The development of CMC has provided possibilities of social interaction beyond geographic boundaries. Studies have shown that international students use CMC to overcome geographic limitations in maintaining their home- country network, and to deal with social difficulties in building a host-country network (Ellison et al., 2007; Lee, Lee, & Jang, 2011). It was found that CMC use of international students with the home-country network facilitated perceived social support, which, in turn, enhanced adjustment (Cemalcilar, 2008). However, CMC use might not always help international students’ adjustment. CMC use may hinder adjustment when used heavily with the home-country network because it might increase reliance on home networks and limit host-country integration (Lee et al., 2011).
For social support, we focused on perceived social support, or the belief that support is available if needed (Mikal et al., 2013). In the context of temporary migration, the belief that one has others to turn to for support is important considering that sojourners are geographically separated from and have limited FtF interaction with their established networks of support. Perceived social support has been shown to predict psychological adjustment better than SNSs- based received support and FtF received support (Li, Chen, & Popiel, 2015; Trepte, Dienlin, & Reinecke, 2015; Trepte & Scharkow, 2016).
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