The nature of social media use and ethnic minorities’ acculturation

Abstract

Social media plays an increasing role in immigrants’ and sojourners’ cultural adaptation process. Understanding how the nature of social media use is associated with immigrants’ psychological as well as sociocultural adjustment is critical to maximizing its potential for acculturation. Interviews with 34 secondary school ethnic minority students in Hong Kong revealed that these students engaged in different types of social media experiences. Different social media experiences afforded different potentials for acculturation. But social media also had negative aspects, carrying over and amplifying some power relationships and struggles in society. The realization of the potentials of social media for acculturation was embedded in the dialectical interactions between the positive and negative aspects of social media experience. The nature of social media use was also situated in specific acculturation situations. The findings suggest a more critical and dynamic approach to understanding the complex relationships of social media use with acculturation and the cyclical interaction between the two.