Babel or Great Wall Social Media Use Among Chinese Students.docx

Babel or Great Wall: Social Media Use Among Chinese
Students in the United States
Shaoke Zhang
Department of Psychology
Tsinghua Uni versity
Beijing, 100084, P.R.C.
[email protected]
Hao Jiang
College of Inform ation Sciences
and Technology
Pennsylvania State Uni versity
Uni versity Park, PA 16802
[email protected]
John M. Carroll
College of Inform ation Sciences
and Technology
Pennsylvania State Uni versity
Uni versity Park, PA 16802
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
We investigated how social media supp ort the acculturation
p rocess for an exp atriate group : Chinese students in the
United
States. We interviewed 20 p articip ants and found that 1)

students
extensively used Chinese social med ia to maintain their
original
self, esp ecially through social bond in g and infor mation
surveillan ce activities, while facin g culture shock; 2) social
media
were also critical in help in g students assimilate into their new
(American) cu lture, through affordances for scaffoldin g, brid
gin g,
and surveillance; 3) the use of social med ia across the
acculturation p rocess is evolvin g in the context of the changin
g
ecolo gy of social media. This study exp ands existing HCI
work on
inter-cultural co mmunication and co llabor ation activities
toward
consideration of accu lturation strategies, online sup p ort for
identity , and designin g for indiv idual d evelop ment.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H5.m. [Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI)]:
M iscellaneous.
J.4 [Computer Applications]: social and behavioral sciences -
Economics, Psycho logy, Sociology.
General Terms
Design, Human Factors, Theory
Keywords
Social Identity , Social M edia, Acculturation, Culture Shock,
Uses
and Gratifications, Online Community
INTRODUCTION
The era of globalization is marked by communications p

enetrating
national or cultural boundar ies in all sorts of areas. Unp
recedented
levels of mobilization or migration, and the boom of infor
mation
communication technolo gies (ICT s) such as social media,
which
free p eop le from the limitations of sp ace and time, have been
two
high ly salient features that are rap idly and irrevocably
changin g
the world. In this p ap er, we exp lore how social media use is
influencin g the acculturation p rocess (i.e. learnin g about,
exp erien cin g, and p articip ating in a n ew culture) in an exp
atriate
context: Chinese students livin g in the United States.
ACCULTURATION PROBLEMS
Increasin g migration or exp atriation has transformed cultural
p henomena in recent decades. It has brought many new
opp ortunities for learnin g and exchan ge, but also social p
roblems
and challen ges. Accord in g to a rep ort by the Dep artment of
Homeland Secur ity [38] in August 2011, there were
46,471,516
nonimmigr ant admissions to the US in the single y ear of 2010;
1,595,078 of these were students, greatly increasing the ethnic
diversity of American universities.
These exp atriates, confronting a n ew culture, may suffer from
my riad difficu lties in cop ing with acculturation, ref erred to
sometimes as “culture shock ” [25, 33] or “cultural fati gue”
[19].
Some exp erien ce co gnitive dissonance [32] or feelin gs of
lonelin ess and alienation [31]. The challen ges of acculturation

can
also undermin e wellb ein g, mental and p hy sical health,
p sy chological satisfaction, self-esteem, work p erformance,
and
grad es in school [22].
Taft [33] identified six distinct sources of culture shock,
confirmed by subsequent researchers (e.g. [24]): 1) strain due
to
the effort required to mak e necessary p sy chological adap
tations; 2)
a sense of loss and feelin gs of dep rivation in r egard to
friends,
status, p rofession and p ossessions; 3) being rejected by or
rejectin g members of the new culture; 4) confusion in role, role
exp ectations, values, feelin gs and self-id entity ; 5) surp rise,
anxiety ,
even dis gust and indignation after becomin g aware of cu ltural
differences; and 6) feelin gs of imp otence due to not being able
to
cop e with the new environment.
We ar e interested in the strategies adop ted by exp atriate
students
to cop e with the challen ges of culture shock. A p riori there
are a
range of p ossibilities. At one extreme, exp atriates might
assimilate
into the new mainstream (e. g. [25]). This is the Babel strateg y,
referrin g to the story of Genesis in which, after the Great
Flood,
all of human ity sp oke a single lan guage and shar ed a
common
culture. Babel is a traditional view of the cultural trajectory of
minorities.

At the other extreme, exp atriates might isolate themselv es
from
the new mainstream cu ltural that confronts them. That is the
Great
Wall strategy, r eferrin g to the attemp t of the early Chinese
emp ire
to p revent incursions from the north. For examp le, Duster [13]
described the tendency of students (at Berkeley ) to group
themselves racially . Duster emp hasizes p ositive consequences
of
such group ing, includ in g the develop ment of in-group
affinities,
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37
cultural p ride, ethnic identity , and social supp ort . Other
researchers ( e. g. [10]) hav e ar gu ed that such self-segregation
can

also lead to incr eased ethnocentrism and r acial intoler ance.
This p henomenon not only denies the antiquated idea of mere
assimilation, but also shatters the overmuch idy llic con cep
tion that
diversity by itself benefits, which guid ed us to take a more
rational
and p ragmatic p ersp ective to exp lore how we could help .
Researchers claimed that increasin g interracial interactions
were
beneficial, because they enhanced cultural awareness and
commitment to ethnic understanding [30], as well as co llege
satisfaction and student retention [7]. We p lan to investigate
how
these strategies ar e emp loy ed with the facilitation of social
media.
IN LIGHT OF IDENTITY THEORIES
M any studies have discussed social identities includin g
national
and ethnic id entities (e.g. [2, 5, 35, 36]), with a consensus that
social ch an ges such as exp atriating or migration would trigger
deep intra-individual chan ges in social identities over time [2].
Social id entity being defin ed as “p art of individuals’ self-
concep t
which derives from his or her knowled ge of membership to a
social group (or group s) together with the valu e and the
emotional
signif ican ce attached to it” [34], imp lies its multip licity
because
the same indiv idual could belon g to a v ariety of group s.
Chinese
students, for examp le, when exp osed to American culture, will
exp erien ce flu ctuations of and conflicts between Chinese
identification (mainly based on ethnicity ) and American
identification (mainly based on living env ironment) in the

context
of social interactions.
Considerin g acculturation in light of social identities gives us
an
opp ortunity to examin e id entification p rocesses sep arately ,
as well
as how different identities beco me integr ated [2, 28]. Accord
in g
to Turner et al. [37], social identification is a p rocess of
dep ersonalization “whereby p eop le come to p erceive
themselves
more as the interchan geable exemp lars of social cat egory
than as
unique p ersonalities”. In such identification p rocesses,
individuals
identify strongly with their group , develop ing a p rototyp e
that
embodies the beliefs, attitudes, feelin gs and b ehaviors
associated
with group membership . However, beliefs, attitudes, feelin gs
and
behaviors could b e inco mp atible in different identification
p rocesses. For p ersons managin g a mu ltip licity of social
identit ies,
these incomp atibilities can create co gnitive d issonance [32]
and
emotional exh austion through the p ursuit of self consistency
[17].
Acculturation Strategies and Identity
Structure
In resp onse to these incomp atibility and dissonance p
roblems,
p eop le develop a variety of cop ing strategies that eventuate
in

different p atterns of identity structures. Berry [5], for examp
le,
p rop osed a framework of four acculturation strategies dep
ending
on whether p eop le value their n ative ethnic identity more or
less
than their new cultural id entity . When individuals do not wish
to
maintain their n ative identity and seek adap tat ion into new
culture,
the Assimilation strategy is defin ed; when individuals p lace
a
value on holdin g a native id entity while avoid en gagin g in
new
culture, the Separation strategy is defined; when ind ividuals
seek
to maintain native identity while also adapting to the new
culture,
the Integration strategy is ap p lied; and Margina lization,
when
individuals abandon the effort of recon cilin g id entities, and
disp lay an interest in neither of them.
Roccas and Brewer [28] further d evelop ed a Social Id entity
Comp lexity , describing four kinds of identity structures
accordin g
to the subjective rep resentations of multip le identities.
Individuals
may categorize themselves in an intersectional group (e. g.
Chin ese
American) while maintainin g both identities (i.e. intersection)
;
they may also adopt one p rimary group identity to which all
other
group identities are subordinated ( e. g. just a Chinese thou gh

temp orarily living in U.S.), which is dominance; they may
also
maintain both identities, whether they are integrated (i.e.
merger)
or not (i.e. compartmentalization).
Berry ’s [5] analy sis seems to oversimp lify the situation
individuals holdin g both identities and ignores p ossibility of
comp artmentalizing and situationalizin g identities. It was
unclear
how well the identities were integr ated in Roccas and Brewer’s
[28] intersection group . According to self-develop ment view,
p eop le’s identities could be constructed and re-constructed,
which
suggests that such categorizations may risk stereotyp ing. They
regarded acculturation as a state instead of a p rocess.
Furthermore, these categorizations are confoundin g d ifferent
p rocesses. For examp le, the assimilation strategy comp rises
both
adap tation to new culture and resistance to original cu lture. A
closer scrutiny of these acculturation strategies as in a quadrant
(figur e 1) reveals two basic un derly in g mechan isms,
identification
with the new culture (e. g. Amer ican identification as in this p
ap er)
and identification with the original culture (e. g. Chinese
identification), that drive acculturation p rocesses and lead to
above
states (i.e. categorizations).
Figure 1. American Identification and Chinese Identification
Underlying Acculturation Processes

SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCING
ACCULTURATION
M ost of studies on acculturation and ident ity structures were
conducted offline, ignorin g the fact that social media are
radically
chan gin g the world. Social med ia, in terms of social network
sites,
weblogs, microblo ggin gs, wikis, Internet forums, social news,
social bookmark in g, and multimedia sharing, etc., introduce
“substantial and p ervasive changes to communication between
organ izations, communities, and ind ividuals” [20] with
tremendous use all over the world. For examp le, Facebook [15]
rep orted that it had more than 750 million active users in
global,
with half of them loggin g in at any given day . Twitter, as
another
examp le, has around 200 million users as of 2011, gener ating
ov er
38
200 million tweets and handlin g over 1.6 billion sear ch
queries p er
day [42].
Functions of Social Media
Social med ia help p eop le to p resent the self [18], and
thereby
supp ort identity construction and maintenance. Sever al
studies [6,
11, 16, 46] have discussed identity embodied in social media.
Closer scrutiny of these studies, however, reveals that most of
them p resented a static concep tion of identity , grounded only

in
user p rofiles and other characteristics. Goffman [18] asserted,
p eop le try to control their self-p resentations to other p eop le
through any typ e of social interactions, we view identity as a
more
dy namic concep tion of constructing self-p resentations, and
studied
identification through social interactions in social media [44,
45].
In this study , we further focus on exp lorin g maintenance,
chan ge
and integration of identities of Chinese students in U.S. in the
context of accu lturation.
Social media help maintain social ties. Youn g p eop le are
motivated to join social network sites to keep strong ties with
friends, to maintain ties with new acquaintances, and to meet
new
p eop le online [1]. Social networkin g sy stems (SNSs) have a
strong
association to maintaining or solidify in g existing offlin e
relationship s [14]. They enable users to create and maintain a
network of heterogen eous and weak ties du e to the low
maintenance cost [6, 12]. For Chinese exp atriates in U.S.,
maintain “old” ties in Chin a is an imp ortant commitment to
Chinese identity ; havin g op p ortunit ies to create “new” ties
may
lar gely facilitate American identification p rocess.
Social media d isseminate information rap idly and have a low
threshold for p articip ation. Barkhuus and Tashiro [3] r ep
orted that
social med ia facilitate social events, and p rovide increased
opp ortunities for engagement. For examp le, telep honing
friends
requires an exp licit social ap p roach and action commitment.

However, interacting through Facebook is more of an incid ental
social interaction. For Chinese exp atriates in U.S., social media
p rovide their op p ortunity to easily en gage in both Chinese
and
American group s, these engagements will def initely influence
their identification p rocesses.
Landscape of Chinese Social Media
There were 221 million blo ggers, 176 million SNS users, 117
million bulletin board sy stem users in China as of early 2010,
which were hu ge amounts [8]. But the social med ia used in
Chin a
are totally different from that in U.S. While most of social
media
hosted in U.S. are lack of access in China, the landscap e of
social
media there is dominated by local p lay ers. As a result, we can
find
the counterp arts of almost all kinds of social med ia in China
(table
1): Renren, for examp le, as a counterp art of Facebook, and
Weibo
as a counterp art of Twitter. In contrast to the wave of
“globalization” of social med ia, this p henomenon of
“relocalization” [39] introduces interesting communication
issues.
There are already some studies sp ecifically investigatin g
these
Chinese social med ia in CHI co mmunity (e.g. [27, 43]).
Chinese students in the United States as a result find themselves
facin g all these op tions, and often use different kinds of
social
media with both American and Chinese counterp arts for their
social lif e. This situation p rovide us a great scenario to exp
lore 1)

how they choose and use different kinds of social media; and 2)
how their use of social media influ ence their acculturation
processes, which serve as the research questions of this p ap er.
American social
media (US -based)
Chinese social
media (CN-based)
Social network sites Facebook, My sp ace Renren, Kaixin001
M icroblogs Twitter Weibo
Online news Portals New York Times Sina News, Sohu
Wikis Wikip edia Baidu Baik e
Online forums Craigslist M ITBBS, Huaren
Instant messaging M SN, Gtalk QQ
Table 1. Examples of American and Chinese social media
counterparts.
METHOD
We interviewed Chinese students who have stay ed in the
United
States for more than two y ears, with behavioral interview
techniques [23], accomp anied with questionnaires. Each study
took about 60 to 90 minutes.
Procedures and Questions
In the study , we first asked p articip ants to introduce

themselves
with back ground questions and the Twenty Statements Test
(TST,
[21]), which had been widely used to exp lore self concep ts in
cross-cultural situations [40]. Particip ants were asked to giv e
twenty brief descrip tions of themselves, which help ed us to
understand their cultural identities (e.g. liv in g in Pennsy
lvania,
gradu ated from Beijin g University , etc) and to relate them
with
social media use ( e. g. connecting a college fr iend through
SNS).
Then they were asked to rep ort their gener al social med ia use
with
a comp rehensive social media list adap ted from Wikip edia
[41]
(by adding Chin ese counterp arts of these media) with about
40
app lication examp les. With this list as a cue, p articip ants rep
orted
which social med ia they use. They were asked to rate use
frequency for each discussed social media ap p lication, with a
6-
p oint Likert scale from 0 (never) to 5 (very frequently ).
For each social med ia ap p lication that was used at least
monthly ,
p articip ants were asked to describe how they used it. With
questions such as why and when they adopted it, what they
usually
did with it, who they usually interacted with, we leveraged
behavioral interview techn ique, which wer e usually used in
human
comp etency assessment studies (e.g. [23]), asking p articip
ants to

describe typ ical events in their p ast exp erience on how the
app lications influenced exp atriate life, in a storytelling way
while
interviewers help ed them clar ify the story .
The interviews were followed by questionnaires about
acculturation to understand the p articip ants. We adap ted the
M ultigroup Ethnic Identity M easure (M EIM , [26]) to
measure
both Chinese and American identification, with 10 items about
cultural information search in g, behavior al involv ement, and
emotional attachment. Based on bicultural identity integration
[4],
acculturation strategy [5], and social identity comp lexity
model
[28], we adap ted the Bicultural Id entity Integration
questionnair e
consisting of 5 items measurin g integration level of Ch inese
and
American id entities (e.g. “these two cultures are just comp
atible”,
and “I usually feel conflicts between these two cultures’). We
also
leveraged the Culture shock Questionnair e [24], which
consisted 7
items such as feelin g of strains, homesickness, and f eelin g of
39
accep tance by new environment. All questionnaires were in 7-
p oint Likert scale.
Two of us took notes and discussed the data after each
interview.

The interviews were conducted in both Chinese and English,
dep ending on p articip ants’ p references. It was imp ossible to
count
the numbers because many conversations were conducted in a
mix
of both languages. In data analy sis p rocess we translated some
of
p articip ants’ rep orts from Chinese to English, with the
agreement
of translation between two interviewers.
Participants
We recru ited p articip ants by sending out a recru itment
message
twice in on e month throu gh a mailin g list of Chinese students
in a
lar ge eastern university in the United States. In the recruitment
message, we asked for p articip ants who had stay ed in US for
at
least two y ears. In this way we recruited 20 p articip ants, with
8
males and 12 females. Their ages ran ged from 20 to 33, with
average of 25.40 (std=3.38). Their y ears in the United States
ranged from 2 to 6, with average of 3.47 (std=1.54). 15
p articip ants were graduate students, and 5 undergraduates.
Their
average time stay ing on social media p er day was 2.60 hours
(std=1.38), rangin g from h alf an hour to 4 hours. Particip ants
were
giv en $10 each to comp ensate for their time.
Demographic information Overall
Number of p articip ants 20
Chinese Identity 5.51 (0.64)
American Id entity 3.77 (1.01)

Bicultural Identity Integration 3.74 (0.97)
Years in U. S. 3.47 (1.54)
Culture shock 3.21 (0.73)
Social media use (hrs) 2.60 (1.38)
Table 2. Demographic information of participants. (figures in
p arenthesis are standard deviations)
Table 2 p resents the descriptive statistics of p articip ants.
Accordin g to p aired-samp le t test, Chinese identifications of
all
p articip ants (mean=5.51, std=0.64) were sign ificantly higher
than
their American identifications (mean=3.77, std=1.01),
t(19)=6.95,
p <0.001. Their Chinese id entifications were all h igher than
four,
which was reasonable because Chin ese identities were their
inborn
ethnic identity .
USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Particip ants’ usage of Chinese (CN-based) social media was
rep orted higher than usage of Amer ican (US-b ased) social
media.
The existence of American and Chinese counterp arts of
different
kinds of media (e.g. Renren vs. Facebook for SNS, Weibo vs.
Twitter for microbloggin g) gave us opp ortunities to comp are.
Table 3 p resents the average usage of some most p op ular
media by
different group s.
From table 3, we found that p articip ants used almost every
kind of
social media in the acculturation context. The least used social

media was US-b ased microblo gs such as Twitter.
Media Overall
usage
SNS US-based (e. g. Facebook) 2.90
CN-based (e.g. R enren) 3.85
M icroblogs US-based (e. g. Twitter) 0.30
CN-based (e.g. Weibo) 3.25
News
p ortal
US-based news p ortal 1.80
CN-based news p ortal 2.50
Wikis US-based (e. g. Wikip edia) 2.65
CN-based (e.g. B aidu Baike) 1.80
Online
Forum
American Forum ( e. g. Craiglist) 1.50
Chinese Forum (e. g. M ITBBS) 3.40
Table 3. Usage of different social media (in use frequency).
The “Babel” and “Great Wall” Strategies
From the interview, all p articip ants rep orted that they
leveraged
social media both to maintain their Ch inese identity (as the

“Great
Wall”) and to get assimilated to American identity (as the
“Babel”). All p articip ants used both US-based and China-b
ased
social media (table 3) and k ep t certain levels of American id
entity
and Chinese identity (table 2). In below section we will analy
ze
how their use of social med ia fulf illed both needs.
Me dia Total #
of
acti vities
# of acti vi ties
for Ameri can
Identi fi cati on
# of acti vi ties
for Chinese
Identi fi cati on
SNS
US-based
(e.g.
Facebook)
40

31
9
CN-based
(e.g.
Renren)
45
0
45
M icroblogs
US-based
(e.g.
T witt er)
5
4
1
CN-based

(e.g.
Weibo)
42
0
41
News
p ortal
US-based
news
port al
7
6
1
CN-based
news
port al
13

0
13
Wikis US-based
(e.g.
Wikipedia)
16
5
1
CN-based
(e.g. Baidu
Baike)
3
0
1
IM Inst ant
messaging
51 7 35

Online
Forum
American
Forum
(e.g.
Craigslist)
4
4
0
Chinese
Forum
(e.g.
MIT BBS)
31
14
17
Table 4. Number of social media use activities for American
and Chinese Identification.

40
From the 20 p articip ants, we collected 329 social med ia use
activities. For each rep orted social media use activity , based
on
p articip ants description of this activity , we further asked them
to
exp licitly identify whether it was p rimarily about getting
adap ted
to American culture (i.e. American identification), or maintain
in g
their Chinese id entities, ties, or events (i.e. Chin ese
identification),
or not related to neither. Based on p articip ants’ rep orts, we
get the
statistics on social media use for different acculturation
strategies
as in table 4.
From table 4, we identified 71 social media use activities for
American identification, and 164 social med ia use activities
for
Chinese identification, which suggested that 1) p articip ants
were
using social med ia ( esp ecially US-b ased SNS such as
Facebook)
to cultivate their American identification; 2) p articip ants were
much more intensively using these social media (esp ecially
CN-
based SNS such as Renren, CN-based microblo gs such as
Weibo,
and instant messagin g) to maintain their Ch inese id

entification.
The other 94 social media use activities were not included in
the
table because they were rep orted as either not relatin g to
cultural
identification (e. g. usin g Facebook group for course p roject),
or
bein g hard to tell (e. g. discussin g visa issue in M ITBBS)
SNS: Maintaining Social Ties of American and
Chinese
We collected 40 activities in US-based SNS ( e. g. Facebook),
and
45 activities in CN-based SNS ( e. g. Renr en). I found that
CN-
based SN S was exclusively for Chinese identification, while U
S-
based SNS was mostly for American id entification.
US-based SNS: cultivating American identity, in
“understanding” level
The US-based SNS that p articip ants rep orted were almost
exclusive Facebook, which was or iginated in the United States
and
had gained p op ularity in many countries. Facebook users p
ost
messages not only for communication p urp ose but also for
self-
p resentation [18] by p ublishing their p ersonal information. It
became a rich chann el for p articip ants to get to know every
day
lives of American friends. Facebook was considered to p rovide
critical information to maintain American ties and to cultivate
American identification.

Facebook p rovides a window to closely observe American
lives
(i.e. information surveillance), as one p articip ant informed us:
“In
Facebook I can learn how American friends’ life is, what they
usually do, wha t they usually th ink ”; another p articip ant rep
orted
“I don’t have much to talk with them outside class, mainly due
to
our different cultural background. Facebook gives me some
sense
about their daily life”. Facebook is critical for American
identification as a scarce on line commun ication ch annel with
American friends. At least 5 p articip ants had statements such
as
“besides email, Facebook is almost the only wa y to connect
with
American friends online”.
The inter-cultural communication, however, often stay ed at an
“understanding” lev el with low lev el of interaction. While
Facebook p rovided easy accessibility to American friends
with
information surveillance and simp le actions such as “like”,
“birthday greetings”, p articip ants rep orted that they seldom
interact deep ly with American fr iends on Facebook. 12
p articip ants described their p assive use of Facebook as merely
viewin g others’ p osts to keep a p erip heral awareness. A typ
ical
resp onse was “I just check it every couple of days to know
what’s
happening around, I don’t write updates, neither do I share,
though occasionally I give comments and add friends”. Some
p articip ants exp lained it with cultural incomp etency such as
“I

want to get involved but I don’ t know what to say”, but some
others claimed “It doesn’t matter. I live well with so many
friends
online [in Chinese social med ia] and offlin e [with o ther Chin
ese
students].Why force myself to adapt to American culture? ”.
Even when en gagin g in Facebook activities, a lar ge p art of
these
activities (9 of 40 as in table 3) could be interactin g with other
Chinese students: “more than half of my Facebook friends are
Chinese; usually they were my target audien ce wh en I was
writing
status updates; sometimes I just type in Chinese”. The
awareness
of the existence of American friends may even inhibit their
active
p osting: “there are so many alien p eople [i.e. w eak ties] in
Facebook; to share something I would choose places like
Renren ”,
which demonstrated that their use of social media are lar gely
influenced by their cultural identity and culture-based social
ties.
CN-based SNS: maintaining Chinese identity,
intensively
Accordin gly table 2, tab le 3 and p articip ants’ rep ort, CN-
based
SNS such as Renren and Kaixin001 were intensively used for
Chinese identification. Particip ants used CN-based SNS
actively
and interactively , by up dating status, up loading p hotos, p lay
ing
social games, shar in g articles and v ideos, co mmentin g, and
chatting. As one p articip ant rep orted, “it is convenient
because

almost all my friends use it, wh ether th ey are currently in Ch
ina
or US, which makes my abroad life no t that boring”. They
rep orted that Facebook and Renren corresp onded to two
different
group s of p eop le (although overlap p ing): in Facebook there
ar e
“alien people” or “professional” fr iends; but in Renr en, there
ar e
“high school friends”, “college friends”, and “Chinese peers in
US”, which were all Chinese social ties.
Accordin gly , the use (and p ercep tion of use) of these two
media
differed: “Facebook is for professional use, and is more formal;
Renren is much more casual and in formal. I will share my
daily
things in Renren, bu t I won’t share th em in Facebook because
they
look too trivial”, which greatly supp orted their cultural
inertia in
the acculturation p rocess.
Microblogging: Surveillance on Chinese Ties
and News
We collected on ly 5 activities on US-based microb lo gs (e. g.
Twitter). Although 12 p articip ants had registered in Twitter,
most
of they seldom used it, because “the [American rela ted]
contents
are not relevant”, and “my friends are not there”. Only 2
p articip ants used Twitter at least weekly . They followed
celebr ities such as famous movie critics, grap hic design ers,
and
industrial lead ers to keep up dated with the movies and
industries.

They have few friends to follow. In contrast with low use of
Twitter, we collected 42 activities on CN-based microblo gs (
e. g.
Weibo). 15 p articip ants used Weibo, at least daily .
The use of microbloggin g tools is different from that of SNS.
“Weibo is so lightweight” that they shared contents “ more
frequently and more casually ” with Chinese friends than in any
other social media in cludin g Renren. Up dates in Weibo can b
e
more “ad hoc”, as a p articip ant rep orted, “ I will create an
album
in Renren for the pho tos of my trip to Las Vegas; bu t if I
randomly
take a picture o f a lovely squirrel on the road, I will definitely
share it in Weibo ”. Accord in g to p articip ants, micro-blo gs
p rovide
a more friendly way for instant sharing of trivial things that
41
matters in daily bonding and acculturation. With these instant
and
rich up dates, Weibo p rovided users quick and wide access to
their
friend’s information, which p rovides p articip ants the
surveillance
with regard to their Chinese friends, and thus maintainin g the
Chinese identity .
Besides keep ing touch with Chinese ties, p articip ants used
Weibo
as news p ortal to keep abreast of current affairs in Chin a. One
p articip ant rep orted that “every morning I open Weibo, I won’

t
miss any piece of hot news”. Any valuab le information ( e. g.
news,
op inion) would be shared and rep ost (like “retweet” in
Twitter)
quickly and extensively in Weibo. In such way , t he hot news
and
top ics transmit much faster than traditional news p ortals. Nine
p articip ants mentioned that they used Weibo to get informed
of
Chinese news, esp ecially in big events such as the Yunn an
earthquake and bullet train crash in China. “ Although I am
currently in US, I am really concerned about these th ings
[that]
happened in China ”, as many p articip ants rep orted.
As Weibo is so lightweight , every user could add op inion
when
resharin g infor mation about hot top ics. Valuab le and div erse
op inions p op ularize through mass sharin g, so that users could
“learn opinions from different p erspectives” that added value to
the news. “There are so many opinions, rumors, and debates.
Weibo makes you open-minded and rational to these events”,
esp ecially when “China is d eveloping so fast with so many
controversial events happening everyday”. They also re-share
messages for emotional sup p orts. For examp le, a p articip ant
re-
rep osted a message callin g for p eop le around in Beijin g to
buy
vegetables from an old p oor lady ; another p articip ant re-
shared a
very p op ular message of blessin g a child victim in the bullet
train
accid ent: “At that moment, I feel my heart is with people in
China ”.

Particip ants also sought for worldwide news and op inions (e.
g.
tsunami in Jap an, up rising in Egy pt) in Weibo. In such
circumstances, the Chinese identity became salient due to the
social categorization in the national level [2, 37]. With so many
channels to understand the world, some of them chose Weibo
to
learn and share op inions with other Chinese p eop le, which
help ed
maintainin g the Chin ese identity .
News Portals and Wikis: to Understand the
Cultures
We co llected 7 activities on U S-based on line news p ortals,
mostly
for American identification, and 13 activities on CN-based news
p ortal exclusively for Chinese identification. Particip ants rep
orted
that they read American news “ so that I know what’s happen
ing
around, and I can have some topics to ta lk with American
friends”,
which imp lied an effort for American identification. M ore
p articip ants exp ressed that they were less interested in things
happ ened in US. “I am more concerned with a similar event
happened in China than that in US”, as one p articip ant rep
orted.
We also collected 16 activities usin g US-b ased wikis ( e. g.
Wikip edia) and 3 activities usin g CN-based wikis ( e. g. Baidu
Baike). While many activities were to understand p rofessional
terms in their acad emic work, p articip ants also used wikis to
understand American cu ltural, historical ev ents, and celebr
ities, as
one p articip ant rep orted: “when I am communicating with
American fr iends, I usua lly hear names or events tha t I have

no
idea. For example, one friend mentioned “the Ellen DeGeneres
Show”, but I never heard of it. When I come back I search ed
for it
in Wikipedia. Actua lly later I even listened to some of her talk
shows.”
Online Forums: Scaffolding, and B ridging
Particip ants sometimes used US-based online forum such as
Craigslist, but they used Chinese online foru ms a lot, includ in
g
both Chinese forums located in US (e.g. M ITBBS) and CN-
based
online foru ms. In the Chin ese on line forums in US ( e. g. M
ITBBS,
huaren.com) wer e sp ecific online co mmunity of Chinese
students
in the US, which are divided into hundreds of subgroup s of
interests and top ics, which were related to “ almost every
aspect o f
our lives in US, from flea market, to travelling to certa in pla
ce, to
repairing a car, to any disciplin e we study, and to fans of certa
in
soccer team”. These bulletin boards serv e as a scaffold role
for
their lives in the U S. “Any time I have a qu estion abou t, say,
wha t
are best Chinese restaurants in Boston wh en I travel there, I
just
enter certa in subgroup to browse or to ask ”, as one p articip
ant
rep orted.
Such scaffoldin g role help s brid ge Chin ese id entities with
American id entities. By interacting with Chinese p eers in the

US,
they learned hand-down exp eriences on how to deal with their
livin g and acculturation p roblems in US (e. g. the visa p
roblem,
how to cook, travel guidan ce, etc.). These interactions help
them
build up cultural comp etency , and thus better engage in
American
life.
Particip ants may also use American counterp arts such as
Craigslist.
Although their usage of Craigslist was limited in things lik e
p urchasing “second-hand p roducts” or house renting, it supp
orted
the American id entification p rocess in help solvin g liv in g
p roblems in the new environment.
Instant Messaging: for Social Bonding
Particip ants rep orted 51 instant messagin g activities, with 7
for
American identification and 35 for Chin ese identification.
They
used instant messaging a lot to communic ate with their Chinese
strong ties. Fifteen p articip ants rep orted that they had weekly
video call with their p arents in IM ’s such as Sky p e and
Tencent
QQ. One p articip ant rep orted that “ I usually use QQ to chat
with
my college friends in China. We talk about everything.
Especially
when someone has some problems and n eeds to pour ou t th eir
worries, I would become a very pa tien t listener and tries to
give
some emotional support.”

THE TEMPORARITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA
USE
We found that p articip ants’ adop tion and use of social med ia
wer e
influenced by two other p rocesses: the changin g landscap e of
social media, and indiv idual accu lturation p hases.
Social Media Migration: Changing landscape
As the time in the U.S. of our p articip ants varied from 2 y
ears to 6
y ears, we had an opp ortunity to observe a p henomenon of
“social
media migr ation” accordin g to their rep orts. As different
social
media emer ged in diff erent time, a rou gh migration p ath was
from
instant messages to blo gs, to social n etworks, and then to
micro-
blogs. While they may use all of these social media, the usages
seemed to have p eaks of waves across the time. As one p
articip ant
rep orted, “when Xiaonei ( the predecessor of Renren) became
popular about five years ago, I began use it with my friends. It
is
much better than blogs because we can build tang ible conn
ection
there. We do not need to bookmark each friend’s blog anymore,
and I got conn ected to friends who hadn’t written b logs
before ”.
Sever al others rep orted “ The use of Renren of my friends is
not as
42

high as a couple of years ago, mainly b ecause w e are using
Weibo
more frequently”.
Adoption and Decay of Media Use along
Acculturation
Particip ants’ use of social media also chan ged dep endin g on
their
acculturation stages in the U.S. M ost of p articip ants rep orted
a
leap in use of social media at the time when they entered the
U.S.
One typ ical examp le was: “ I used Renren much more
frequently
when I came here three years ago, although I had its accoun t
earlier. When in China we could see friends around [so we
didn’t
use it much], bu t right before I came abroad, I thought I
should
have something to stay connection w ith th em”.
The social media migr ation p henomenon becomes much mor e
comp lex when accomp anied with p articip ants’ length of stay
in
the U.S. For examp le, the adoption (or leap in use) of certain
social media lar gely dep end on their time of entry . Both of
the two
p articip ants who entered the U.S. in 2005 used b lo gs
frequently to
share their American lives; and most p articip ants who came to
the
U.S. two y ear later chose to use social network sites.
12 p articip ants mentioned the decay of use of at least one
kind of
social media. Facebook was a fr equent examp le. One p articip

ant
observed that the decay of Facebook use was common in his
Chinese friends, “now just a few of my friends are still actively
using it [Facebook], so I don’t use it either”. Although this
decay
could be p artly attributed to the emergence of its Chinese
counterp arts (e.g. Renren) and n ew kind of social media (i.
e.
microblo ggin g), p articip ants indeed rep orted the influence of
the
acculturation p hases. An interesting examp le is: “ when I came
here [four year ago], I created a Facebook account to add
friends.
We used it a lot w ith silly features such as pokes and biting
zombies. But a couple of years later my socia l network became
pretty large, with many acquaintances, like some foreigner, or
professional friends met on ce in conferen ces. I don’t like
having
too much revealed to so many p eople w ith whom I am not
familiar
[weak ties]”, so now she just checked Facebook every coup le
of
day s but seldom p osted anything.
A more salient examp le is the Bulletin Boards Sy stems. M ost
of
p articip ants rep orted that they used bulletin boards
intensively in
their first y ear in U.S., because they had “so many things to
ask for
help”. But several y ears later, as they got more adap ted in
new
cultural env ironment, their usage decr eased, just as one p
articip ant
rep orted that now she “only ch eck it weekly to keep upda ted,
or to

look for some deals when needed”.
DISCUSSION
The Acculturation Process
This study exp ands existin g HCI work on inter-cultural
communication and collaboration activities toward research on
acculturation strategies, the onlin e sup p ort of cultural identity
, and
design in g for individu al develop ment. Livin g abroad can be
excitin g and en joy able, but it can also b e challen gin g and
ev en
difficult. Peop le reconstruct and maintain identities throughout
lif e,
but for y oung p eop le identity develop ment is an imp ortant
social
p roject. Young adults liv in g abro ad face a p articularly
challen gin g
identity construction p roject, due to cognitive dissonance and
emotional exhaustion caused by the inco mp atibilities of
values,
feelin gs and behav ioral p atterns imp lied in different cultural
identity [17, 32]. This challen ge is even greater when the two
cultural identities bein g man aged are relatively more distinct,
as
they are in case of Chinese and American cu lture. Study ing
Chinese students livin g in the United States is p articularly
imp ortant because the two cultures they are dealin g with are
quite
different, because mor e and more Chinese students are p
ursuing
education in the U. S., and b ecause the two cultures are quite
imp ortant ones geo-p olitically and are broadly engagin g at a
scale
and rate that is unp recedented.

All p articip ants in our study showed strong identification with
their origin al culture and strong needs for maintain in g
original
cultural identity . All p articip ants maintained a high er
Chinese
identification than American id entification. This cultural
inertia
can be seen as a result of livin g in a culturally different
environment, because accord in g to social identity theory ,
group
identity becomes more salient with p resence of contrasting
group s
[2, 37]. Living abro ad is an extreme case of this kind, in which
one has to interact with p eop le from a differ ent culture
throughout
every day life. In this analysis, social media can be a tool to re-
access and re-ener gize one’s original cu lture, and thereby a
tool
for maintainin g it within a contrasting cultural cont ext.
In reactin g to stimuli from wide social context, some p articip
ants
showed certain level of neglect or resistance. This is a stage of
cultural identity “sep aration” [5]. Our p articip ants rep orted
high
use of social media to maintain Chinese ties (as the “Great
Wall”)
p roviding emotional sup p orts, which allev iate the cu lture
shock
[24, 33]. They also exp ressed high use of bulletin broad sy
stems
that are based in America but p rovide Chinese content as a
Chinese onlin e community , which is more of an indication of
identity level maintenance.
Particip ants also exhib ited efforts to get assimilated to

American
culture. For examp le, p articip ants were using U S-based SNS
to
connect with American friends and have an information
surveillan ce of them; they used Wikip edia to understand
culture
and history of the United States; some p articip ants even
regular ly
use US-based news p ortals.
Use Social Media to Support Identity
Development and Acculturation
The extensive use of Chin ese social med ia can be a result of
drivin g demands of maintain in g one’s original identity .
Social
network sites (SNS) and instant messages (IM ) contribute to
this a
lot. Although both SNS and IM do not necessarily work on the
social identity level, they do p rovide a strong mechanism for
Chinese students living abroad to maintain social ties, and thus
cultural id entities reinforced or cultivated. From our p articip
ants’
disclosure, these two typ es of social media kep t the emotional
connections between them and their Chinese fr iends (i.e. bond
ing).
Facebook was not the most used social med ia for this p urp ose,
although it is the most p op ular social network website.
Instead,
Chinese social n etwork websites such as Renren served this
p urp ose.
Another kind of social media that can help satisfy the need of
maintainin g and reinfor cin g Chin ese cultural identity is
Chinese
news p ortal and a twitter-like system called Weibo. From these
channels, Chin ese students in the U.S can subscribe or read

news
related to China in a very timely fashion (i.e. surveillance).
What
we could see fro m our p articip ants was that they cared about
the
happ enings in their home country , showing high connection
with
original cultural id entity .
Besides usin g social med ia as the “Great Wall” to maintain in
g
their Chinese identity , p articip ants also use social medial to
43
cultivate American identity . Facebook serves as a p lace where
Chinese students can observe Amer ican lif e and as a channel
for
Chinese students to have p ersonal contacts with American p
eop le
(i.e. bridging).
Social media run by Chinese exp atriates in the U.S. p rovide
content in Chinese and they cover almost every asp ect of
livin g in
the US: travelin g, finan ce, legal issues, health, and many
others
(i.e. scaffold ing). Social media of this typ e p lays a very imp
ortant
role in liv in g abroad at least for the early y ears. These media
p rovide information of very useful instrumental value at first,
to
help someone get one’s life goin g. It also p rovides a forum
where

the new exp atriates can raise questions and seek for help in
Chinese when their secondary language is not p roficient. This
is
very imp ortant in that bein g able to find help in an
unfamiliar
culture can alleviate cu lture shocks [24, 33]. A social learn in g
of
those seemingly trivial and concr ete exp eriences of others can
help
foreign students adapt their lives into a new environment and
lead
to further identity integration.
Some Underlying Mechanis ms
Lookin g at the use of social media in our p articip ants, we see
a
p attern of temp orality of social media use. In the first coup le
of
y ears, social media that p rovide China-related information and
interp ersonal interaction are intensively used and app reciated
by
Chinese students. They used these channels to consolidate their
connections with remote f amily members and fr iends, which
is
more emotionally bonded and less informational in nature. At
the
same time, U.S-based Chinese social med ia that p rovide
content
relevant to livin g in the U.S also was used intensively .
Use of these media becomes less after a p eriod of time; but the
use
of social media such as Facebook that p resents more American
lif e
continues, although with a relatively low interaction level with
American ties. In later y ears, Chinese students also showed

their
interests in absorbing American news p ortals.
In terms of total social media use, we noticed the trend that the
amount of time sp ent on social media decreased over time,
accomp anied with decreasin g culture shock in our p articip
ants.
One interp retation of this is that students with well-integrated
cultural identity has less trouble in handling and reacting to
social
stimuli and they can sp end more time on their offlin e life. It
is not
surp rising, since as y ears sp end in a new environ ment incr
eases,
familiarity and skills of cop ing in the environment will
develop .
However, this p oints to us that some social media ar e more of
value to exp atriates only for a p eriod of time and the mar
ginal
value and actual use of these social med ia decrease ov er time.
We believe that it is a p rocess of social construction. Both
human
agents and social media p lay interactively to achieve this
cultural
identity integration and successfully cultural cop ing. In the
develop ing p rocess, it is the agents actively choosing
different
social media to react to stimuli fro m the social world, and
social
media p rovide the p ossibility for human agents to do so. So in
our
case of Ch inese students livin g in the U. S, it becomes a sp
iral
circle: students living abroad exp erience d ifficu lties to p
rocess

culturally different events, certain social media can help ; when
students develop their understandings and skills of cop in g
American culture in r eal life, not n ecessarily from those
social
media, old social med ia can lose their mar gin al valu e to the
students and they may find new media and way s of life.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTION
In this p ap er we investigated how Chinese students in the
United
States used social media in acculturation p rocess. Diverse
social
media were lever aged for accommodatin g Amer ican identity
as
well as maintain in g Chin ese id ent ity . They p rovide value
to
p articip ants such as bridging, social bondin g, information
surveillan ce, and scaffold in g. This exp loratory work exp ands
existing HCI work on inter-cultural communication and
collabor ation activities toward research on acculturation
strategies,
and designin g to supp ort self develop ment.
What we learned is that no sin gle tool can serve well in cu
ltural
identity integration. Particip ants adopted different kinds of
social
media for differ ent uses in the acculturation p rocess. While
Babel
strategy rep resents an effort seeking for total assimilation into
the
host culture, the Great Wall strategy rep resents a resistance to
adap t. Neither is enough as shown in the study . With supp orts
of
social media, we actually have b etter choice, to embrace cu
ltural

diversity and move towards a new self, by cultivating new
identities and maintain in g existin g identities at the same time.
It should be noted that as we recruited p articip ants through a
mailin g list of Chinese student in one university , the results
could
be biased due to the samp ling issue. M ost of the p articip ants
were
gradu ate students, which further limited the generalizability of
this
study . While this is mainly a qualitative interview study , we
p resented some quantitative data, which suggested some trends
without further statistical examination due to limited samp le
size.
We p lan to conduct a survey study with large samp le of Chin
ese
students in the United States based on this study .
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
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U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
National Healthcare System
VA Telehealth Services
What Is Telehealth?
Telehealth in VA is defined as: "The wider application of care
and case management principles to the delivery of health care
services using health informatics, disease management and

telehealth technologies to facilitate access to care and improve
the health of designated individuals and populations with the
intent of providing the right care in the right place at the right
time" Telehealth changes the location where health care
services are routinely provided.
Telehealth Location Options: Can Be Clinic or Home Based:
Real-Time Clinic Based Video Telehealth
Traditionally, Veterans seeking health care traveled to the VA
hospital or medical center. In order to increase Veterans' access
to health care, VA has so far created over 700 hundred of
community-based outpatient clinics to bring VA care closer to
home for veterans. However, the nearby clinics may not have all
of the specialty services and staff found at the regional medical
center. For example, if specialty care is needed from a
cardiologist (heart physician), neurologist (nervous diseases
specialist), surgeon for follow-up after surgery, or psychiatrist
for mental health care, the clinic provider may need to refer the
veteran to the VA medical center.
For many Veterans travel to the medical center can be a very
complicated and sometimes arduous task, particularly if the
Veteran lives in a very remote or rural area, an area with
sometimes severe weather, or even an urban area where
congestion and traffic makes travel difficult. Some injuries such
as traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury further
complicate travel. Travel time is time away from the Veteran's
work or family.
VA is now recognized as one of the world leaders in this new
area of health care. Clinical Video Telehealth (CVT) uses these
telehealth technologies to make diagnoses, manage care,
perform check-ups, and actually provide care.
Home Telehealth
For Veterans who have a health problem like diabetes, chronic
heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD),
depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, getting treatment
can be complex and inconvenient.

For some, especially older Veterans, conditions like these can
make it difficult for them to remain living independently in
their own home and make it necessary for them to go into a
nursing home where their symptoms and vital signs (pulse,
weight, temperature etc) can be checked frequently. Having this
information means providers and nurses can change medications
or other treatments and prevent serious health problems from
developing.
Now there are new technologies that make it possible to check
on symptoms and measure vital signs in the home. Special
devices (home Telehealth technologies) can do this and are easy
to use. Home Telehealth can connect a Veteran to a VA hospital
from home using regular telephone lines, cellular modem (these
act as doors for transmission of information) and cell phones
(using a interactive voice response system).
VA has found that not every patient is suitable for this kind of
care. But, for those that are, Home Telehealth can help them to
remain at home and live independently.
Telehealth Specialties at the VA – 3 examples below:
1. TeleMental Health:
VHA uses information technology and telecommunication
modalities to augment care provided by its Mental Health
clinicians to Veterans throughout the United States. VHA
TeleMental Health is the delivery of services using virtual
linkages between VHA patients and Mental Health providers
separated by distance or time.
2. TeleRehabilitation:
The delivery of services using virtual linkages like using video
teleconferencing to link a speech pathologist located at the
urban VA medical center with a post-stroke Veteran patient
located at the local VA community-based outpatient clinic, or
using home telehealth technologies to connect with Veterans at

home to monitor their functional status and equipment needs.
3. TeleSurgery:
The main need VHA is meeting via telesurgery is not for
operative surgery support but for specialist consultation to
remote sites. The diagnosis of surgical conditions, the
coordination of care for many surgical conditions and the triage
of surgical patients can be favorably influenced by the
availability of telesurgical consultation. Additionally, the use of
telehealth can provide intra-operative consultation, patient and
staff education as well as pre- and post-operative assessment.
Read Journal Article:
Perdew, C et al. Innovative models for providing clinical
pharmacy services to remote locationsusing clinical video
telehealth. Am J Health-Syst Pharm. 2017; 74: 1093-1098.
Link to VA Telehealth Website (optional):
https://www.telehealth.va.gov/index.asp

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