Abstract
While an ever-growing body of research is concerned with user behavior on individual social network sites (SNSs)—mostly Facebook—studies addressing an alternating use of two or more SNS are rare. Here, we investigate the relationship between alternating SNS use and social capital in the context of migration. Alternating SNS use avoids some of the problems associated with large networks located on one site; in particular the management of different social or cultural spheres. Not only does this strategy hold potential for increased social capital, it also provides a particular incentive for migrants faced with the challenge of staying in touch with back home and managing a new social environment. Two survey studies are presented that focus on the relationship between alternating SNS use and online ties in a migrant context involving Indian nationals. Study 1 looked at migration within India, whereas Study 2 compared international with domestic SNS users. In both studies, alternating SNS use added to the prediction of online network size and accounted for differences in network size found for migrant and non-migrant users. Differences were due to the number of peripheral ties, rather than core ties. Findings suggest that alternating SNS use may constitute a compensatory strategy that helps to overcome lower levels of socializing represented through a single SNS.
Highlights
In this work, we investigate links between an individual’s use of more than one social network site (SNS) [1] and online social contacts in the context of migration
Migrant users reported markedly smaller online networks when compared to non-migrant users, and they reported a lower number of SNSs in use
While this does not at first support our expectations that migrants would be drawn to the adoption of more than one SNS, alternating SNS use did show a positive association with Orkut network size and accounted for differences in network size between migrant and non-migrant users
Summary
We investigate links between an individual’s use of more than one social network site (SNS) [1] and online social contacts in the context of migration. While the use of a range of social media channels for network maintenance is well documented in past research [2,3], the detailed usage pattern for multiple SNSs has not received similar attention. In the following, such usage is referred to as alternating use, without implying any particular temporal sequence. Information technology generally has helped migrants to stay connected to their geographical origins [4,5,6,7,8], but to date little is known about SNS use and migration
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