Page 77 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

Summary of results. We found that face-to-face interaction with the host- country network had neither long-term nor short-term effect on homesickness (RQ1); Facebook interaction with the host-country network decreased homesickness both in the long-term and in the short-term (RQ2); Facebook interaction with the home-country network had neither long-term nor short-term effect on homesickness (RQ3); homesickness had neither long-term nor short- term effect on FtF interaction with the host-country network (RQ4); homesickness increased Facebook interaction with the host-country network in the short- term, but not in the long-term (RQ5); and, homesickness had neither long-term nor short-term effect on Facebook interaction with the home-country network (RQ6). For our hypotheses, we found that homesickness decreased sociocultural adjustment in the short-term, but not in the long-term (H1). The prediction that sociocultural adjustment will decrease homesickness was not supported (H2). Lastly, length of stay did not have any significant effect on any of the variables in the models. This indicates that the pattern of results is similar regardless of the duration of stay of the international students in the host country. Note that our results indicated small effect sizes. These, however, are similar in magnitude to those found in previous studies (Shakya & Christakis, 2016).
Discussion
This study examined a model which proposed that FtF interaction with the host-country network and Facebook interactions with the home- and the host- country networks predict homesickness, which in turn, predicts sociocultural adjustment. We also tested for the reciprocal effects of social interactions and homesickness, as well as the reciprocal effects of homesickness and sociocultural adjustment. We tested the model under long-term and short-term temporal assumptions using cross-lagged and non-lagged reciprocal effects path analyses, respectively. The results indicated that Facebook interaction with the host-country network lowered homesickness, both in the long-term and the short-term. Also, homesickness increased Facebook interaction with the host-country in the short- term. Homesickness lowered sociocultural adjustment in the short-term. Facebook use with the host-country network had an effect on sociocultural adjustment via homesickness.
SNS, Homesickness, and Adjustment 75