An Investigation into the Impact of Ethnicity and Culture on the Motivation for using Facebook for Academics and Socialization in Guam

As most of the prior research on Facebook use and impact has been conducted within the continental US, there is a need to explore these issues in other countries and cultures. This article conducts this study on Guam, a US unincorporated territory. This article surveys Guamanian college students to investigate the impact of ethnicity and culture on Facebook use for socialization and academics among Chamorros and Filipinos, the two major ethnic groups on Guam. The following notes that Filipinos stay logged on longer per Facebook visit, and have significantly higher scores on Social Maintenance, Academic Outreach, and Hofstede's Individualism-Collectivism and Masculinity-Femininity cultural scales. A step-wise regression analysis showing that Facebook use is related to cultural background indicates that Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions can be used for exploring the use of Facebook for social and academic interactions. This also implies that Facebook can be a suitable tool for engaging students in both social and academic contexts.