Diffusion of Innovation in Social Media: How College Students of Hawaii Pacific University are Adopting Social Media.

摘要

This thesis will replicate and update a study by Metzger, Flanagin and Zwarun done in 2003 on "College Student Web Use, Perception of Information Credibility and Verification Behavior". The study confirmed that college students are using the World Wide Web more than ever before. According to Metzger, Flanagin and Zwarun (2003), students would use the Internet instead of the campus library for finding academic information (as cited in Lubans, 1998, 1999: Pew Research Center, 2002; Shackleford, Thompson, & James, 1999). The purpose of this study is to discover how HPU college students adopt the innovation of social media, and how it gains acceptance by members of this community. This study will also discover if there are any differences between two nationalities: an American adopter, versus a Scandinavian adopter, when it comes to the use of social media.;The study found that there was indeed a difference between the American and Scandinavian students regarding different opinions when it came to the usage of social media. There are more American students that are not active on any social media networking sites, while every Scandinavian respondent was that they were on social media every day. Overall, this study concluded that the Scandinavian students are more actively on social networking sites, possibly because they want to keep in contact with their families back home.