Foreign students and implications of their social networking sites usage

Past research examining how foreign students utilise Social Networking Sites (SNS) to settle into their host countries are overly Western-centric in their discussions of the issue at hand. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to determine how foreigners or immigrants make use of SNS as a tool to establish their place within Singapore, whether their sense of collective identity influences their SNS usage patterns and whether their usage of SNS has any impact on their ability to integrate into the local context. Findings suggest that usage of SNS does have a bit of influence on these students’ self-identity, but a rather limited impact on their collective identity. Also, increased face-to-face contact with locals, stemming from SNS usage improves chances of integration. Further research can build upon findings of this study to device strategies to facilitate foreigners’ integration process in Singapore and to improve relations between foreigners and Singaporeans.Bachelor of Art