Examining Chinese students’ Internet use and cross-cultural adaptation: does loneliness speak much?

Abstract

Guided by uses and gratifications theory and prior research on cross-cultural adaptation (CCA), this article investigated how loneliness influenced Chinese students’ Internet use and CCA. The results showed that chronically lonely, situationally lonely and non-lonely groups were significantly different in their motives for Internet use. Non-lonely Chinese students were more likely to use the Internet for acculturation and less likely to use it for passing time and companionship than did chronically lonely Chinese students. Moreover, loneliness was a significant negative predictor of both sociocultural adaptation and psychological adaptation. Consistent with previous research on CCA, the findings lent support to the uses and gratifications paradigm which posits that individual differences influence people's motivation for media use. Implications of the results for uses and gratifications and CCA research are discussed.