The Effect of Social Media to Cultural Homecoming Tradition of Computer Students in Medan

Abstract

Homecoming has become phenomenon and tradition in Indonesia that is famous called as Mudik. It normally happens during the feast day (Hari Raya), commonly at Idul Fitr or long weekends, mostly done by Muslim. The tradition of returning to hometown contains several dimensions such as spiritual, psychological and social as the implication of a cultural heteronomy. Most of them migrate to urban from rural area to get a higher education or to find a respected job, but they return to their hometown for a while to meet their parents or relatives or to show their success. On the other hand, social media has been growing vastly and become the normal channel and strong tool for the citizen to communicate and carry influential message among communities. Thus, this study wants to identify the effect of the social media use among university students, in this case is Medan towards homecoming tradition. This study focuses to computer students, as they are demographic type that frequent to utilize the benefit of social media as well have more knowledge about features and technical side of that tools. Respectively, there were 250 questionnaires distributed to student in three major campuses in Medan for the purpose of this study.