In recent decades, the development of digital technology has reshaped the way of social interaction as well as the social relationships for international students. Specifically, the use of social media conduces to enhance the involvement with different interpersonal networks, which in turn improves their gratification in the host society (Chen & Li, 2017). Moreover, evidence has shown that using social media, such as Facebook, leads to enhance the perceived social capital of college students and the satisfaction with their campus life (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007). However, only a handful of studies has compared the different ways in which the use of cultural-different social media influences the interpersonal networks as well as the degree of social integration. From the perspective of social capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Putnam, 1995), this paper compares how the use of different social network sites (SNSs) influences the perceived social capital among Chinese international students in a non-English-speaking European city, Barcelona.
In a quantitative study, 116 Chinese international students in Barcelona answered a questionnaire surveying their intensity of use of six SNSs (i.e., WeChat, Facebook, WhatsApp, Weibo, Twitter and Instagram) and their perceived degree of bridging, bonding and maintained social capital. Three linear regression models were built to explore the relationship between the SNS use and the social capital. The results revealed that the intensity of Facebook use was positively associated with bridging social capital [F(2, 113) = 11.149, p < .001]; while WeChat positively influenced both bonding [F(2, 113) = 10.506, p < .001] and maintained [F(1, 114) = 5.439, p
= .021] social capital. Interestingly, the amount of months spent in Barcelona was also positively associated with bridging [F(1, 114) = 5.557, p = .020] and bonding [F(1, 114) = 14.108, p
< .001] social capital, suggesting that besides the SNS use, the length of staying in the host milieu also plays a role in social integration.
In short, these results confirmed that intensively using the host country SNSs (e.g., Facebook) plays an important role in obtaining novel and heterogeneous information, while ethnic SNSs (e.g., WeChat) mainly contribute to obtaining emotional and material support. Further qualitative studies will be dedicated to analyzing how the perceived social capital and different SNSs functions influence Chinese students’ cross-cultural adaptation.
References:
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York, NY: Greenwood.
Chen, H. T., & Li, X. (2017). The contribution of mobile social media to social capital and psychological well-being: Examining the role of communicative use, friending and self-disclosure. Computers in Human Behavior, 75, 958-965.
Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 12(4), 1143-1168.
Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6,65–78.