How Students Adopt Social Media - 884 Words

Introduction This study will examine how HPU students adopt social media, and if there are any difference between an early American adopter versus an early Scandinavian adopter. The literature review will guide this study by give an understanding of how new innovations in social media are being adopted by the use of Diffusion of Innovation Theory. The first three sections of the literature review will provide information of the American and Scandinavian culture, with the focus on the differences in the use of technology between them. The forth section will provide Social Media and Facebook, which is essential in understanding this study. In sum, this literature review consists of the following sections: Culture (the differences in use†¦show more content†¦The definitions explain that culture as â€Å"human-made† and that it is learned, it highlights subjective elements such as values, beliefs and behaviors. However, culture is a term that is difficult to define and it is diffic ult to identify all the factors that it encompasses (Davey, 2011). Culture includes gender, sexual orientation, race, socioeconomic status, and cultural background (Peters Williams, 2009). Other terms such as mainstream, minority, ethnicity religion and race are used to describe how a group of people, a community or a nation lives in their social and physical environment (Schinke Hanrahan, 2009). 2.2 American Culture and Technology From a historic viewpoint, the American culture has dominated global culture based on its technological leadership of Web-based and consumer technology (Ashby, 2006). While these innovations are adopted outside the United States, in America it becomes less and more global. Cortada (2009) explains that American Web sites, applications and high-tech gadgets are dispersed worldwide, which results that it becomes less US-centric, even though they remain influenced by American culture. By using Facebook in this thesis, one sees that this technology is clearly a part of American culture, but worldwide adoption causes them to become less American. Nye (1997) explained, â€Å"Machines are social constructions which Americans long have