Cultural difference in motivations for using social network sites: A comparative study of American and Korean college students

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Abstract

While the explosive growth of social network sites is a common phenomenon across many countries, the ways people use them and their reasons for doing so may differ depending on their social and cultural milieu, for fundamental values are divergent from culture to culture. This study is an attempt to examine how cultural contexts shape the use of communication technology by examining the motives for and patterns of using social network sites among college students in the US and Korea. The findings of this study suggest that the major motives for using social network sites – seeking friends, social support, entertainment, information, and convenience – are similar between the two countries, though the weights placed on these motives are different. Reflecting the unique social nature of the medium, Korean college students put more weight on obtaining social support from existing social relationships, while American students place relatively greater emphasis on seeking entertainment. Additionally, American college students’ networks in an online social venue are far larger than their Korean counterparts, which may reflect the cultural difference between the two countries regarding developing and managing social relationships.

Introduction

As a new venue for relationship formation and maintenance, SNSs have attracted numerous users around the globe. For example, Facebook and MySpace, which both originated in the US, served more than 117 million and 55 million US visitors, respectively, in 2009, and they continue to gain popularity throughout the world (Eldon, 2010). The rapid growth of SNSs on a global scale has been concurrent with the development of many SNSs that cater to their local audiences. For example, Cyworld, a Korea-based SNS, enjoys 23 million members in 2009 (Goh, 2009) – more than a third of the entire Korean population – while Japan’s Mixi has 26.8 million members in 2010 (Advertising Age, 2010). Underlying this ever-increasing popularity of SNSs is the fact that this social medium enables its users to connect to others within their social and geographic proximity, as well as beyond it. SNSs provide a convenient way not only to manage existing social relationships, but also to build new relationships with many others, including even total strangers.

The unique social nature and mounting popularity of SNSs has led academic scholars to investigate why people use SNSs – the motivations underlying the use of social media (Brandtzæg and Heim, 2009, Jung et al., 2007, Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008). One of the theoretical approaches to understanding motives for using new media is the uses-and-gratifications perspective, which explains the way people adopt and use communication media as a function of their psychological needs and the gratifications they seek (Katz et al., 1974, Lin, 1999, Rubin, 1994). While several studies have explored the motives for using SNSs from the uses-and-gratifications perspective (Brandtzæg and Heim, 2009, Jung et al., 2007, Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008), most of them have focused on a single country (e.g., the US, Korea, or Norway), which limits the validity and applicability of their findings in cross-cultural contexts.

The global expansion of SNSs seems to mirror the inherent desire people all have in common – the desire to relate to others, which transcends geographical, social, and cultural borders (Levitt, 1983; Park & Jun, 2003). This commonality, however, often overshadows the fact that computer-mediated communication does not occur in a cultural void, but depends on a social and cultural milieu wherein individuals acquire the fundamental values and norms that shape their social behaviors (de Mooij, 1998, Halavais, 2000, Recabarren et al., 2008). Accordingly, the motivations underlying the use of SNSs and social interaction via SNSs may differ across cultures, for mediated communication in SNSs also reflects the dominant values and codes of the culture from which users originate (Boyd, 2008). For instance, Kim and Yun (2007), based on in-depth interviews with Cyworld users, suggested that the social relationships and parlance that Koreans maintain in a SNS mirror the governing interpersonal norms and communication styles specific to Korea’s collectivistic and high-context culture. Similarly, other studies found cultural differences in the growing forms of computer-mediated communication on SNSs, namely deceptive behavior in SNSs between the US and Korea (Lewis & George, 2008) and SNS architectural structures between Facebook and Mixi (Fogg & Iizawa, 2008). Lewis and George (2008) identified the differences of Koreans and Americans in terms of propensity and topics of deception in both face-to-face and computer-mediated-communication on SNSs – Cyworld and MySpace. In general, Koreans were more apt to employ deception than Americans and Koreans tended to lie about their job, salary, and physical appearance, whereas Americans were apt to lie about where they lived, age, and interests (Lewis & George, 2008). In addition, Fogg and Iizawa (2008) compared the SNS architecture and interface between Facebook and Mixi. While both sites have the same goal of persuading users to create personal profiles, inviting friends, respond to others, and return to site often, their services are designed differently: Facebook interface is designed for users to take quick action by providing direct and assertive notifications to users, whereas Mixi’s approach is subtle and indirect, which leads longer time to achieve similar results than those of Facebook (Fogg & Iizawa, 2008).

The purpose of this study, therefore, is to showcase the role of culture in computer-mediated communication by exploring and comparing the motives for and ways of using SNSs among college students between two different cultural contexts: the United States and Korea. Both countries are technologically advanced, with the widespread adoption of the Internet and SNSs, but they exhibit a sharp contrast in cultural orientations. Over 74% of the US population (252 million) and 77% of the Korean population (36 million) use the Internet (Internet World Stats, 2009), and approximately one third of the respective populations are unique visitors of SNSs, which represents the number of unduplicated visitors to the site in a specified time frame (Joffee and Yeom, 2006, Ostrow, 2007). In addition, these two countries are diametrically different in key cultural dimensions such as individualism/collectivism and high/low context (Cho et al., 1999, Gudykunst and Nishida, 1986, Hall, 1976, Hofstede, 1984, Taylor et al., 1997).

Section snippets

Motives for using SNSs

In examining new media adoption and use, uses-and-gratifications perspective provides a useful conceptual framework (for a brief summary of the uses-and-gratification studies, see Roy, 2009). The key premise of use-and-gratifications perspective is that individuals’ media use is motivated by a set of psychological needs. Based on its fundamental assumption that people are active and goal directed in their media uses, the uses-and-gratifications perspective explains that people purposefully

Sample and procedure

Our study sample (N = 589) consisted of American and Korean undergraduate students who registered at large universities in their respective countries. A total of 349 undergraduate students enrolled in campus-wide elective classes and introductory advertising classes at a large southwestern university in the US, and 240 undergraduates enrolled in campus-wide electives or introductory communication classes at five different universities located in metropolitan areas in Korea participated in the

Preliminary results: use of SNSs

Prior to examining the research questions, descriptive information on SNS usage among survey respondents from the US and Korea was obtained. Consistent with other recent reports (see Eldon, 2010), Facebook ranked as the most popular SNS that American participants used most frequently (83.4%), followed by Myspace (9.7%), YouTube (4.3%), and others (2.6%). Consistent with the findings from previous research (Kim & Yun, 2007), the most frequently reported SNS among Korean participants was Cyworld

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to explore the motives behind using SNSs among college students in the US and Korea and investigate the differences in SNS use motives and usage behavior between the two countries. In this study, five motivations – seeking friends, social support, information, entertainment, and convenience – were identified as primary reasons for using SNSs among college students in both countries. Although the explained variances by the individual motivations differed slightly

Implications and limitations

The findings of this study shed light on how culture plays a role in shaping college students’ motives for using SNSs, which in turn influence their patterns of using them. Theoretically, this study expands uses-and-gratification perspectives to the new media – SNSs, in a cross-cultural context – the United States and Korea. The results confirmed the influence of culture on American and Korean college students’ different use motivations of SNSs and usage behavior patterns. Practically, the

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