Trust is key to community commerce or peer-to-peer e-commerce where transactions happen within local communities. Trust is especially vital among migrants who move to new countries and need time to develop trust after arrival. To understand migrants’ trust development in community commerce and its potential and challenges for supporting their transition to the United States, we conducted 24 semi-structured interviews with migrants who had lived there for three years or less. We highlight practices embedded in difficulties engaging with technologies in a new place. We identify four forms of migrants’ trust and show how their offline experiences with local communities reflect their online trust development in community commerce and vice versa, thereby creating unique challenges in their adaptation to new technologies. We coin the term sociotechnical adaptation to frame migrants’ distinctive adjustments to social media technologies in a new country. We conclude with implications for creating community commerce platforms that foster migrants’ trust and a reflection on how sociotechnical adaptation may vary among diverse migrant populations.

Transnational newcomers, i.e., foreign-born populations who move to a new country, rely on consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce (C2C e-commerce) to access local resources for adaptation. However, with low trust among transnational newcomers who en- ter a new country, they often face difculties in the adaptation process, and little is known about which determinants afect their trust in C2C e-commerce. Because social identity is often compli- cated in transnational newcomers’ adaptation process, our work focuses on unpacking shared identity, a key trust antecedent in C2C e-commerce. We interviewed 12 transnational newcomers in the United States to identify the determinants of their shared identity in C2C e-commerce. Our preliminary results suggest that shared identity determinants include geographic proximity, ethnic back- ground, life stage, and socio-economic status. We also uncovered ways that shared identity determinants infuence transnational new- comers’ trust in local C2C e-commerce. Our work contributes two research implications to future studies on transnational newcomers’ technology use.

Immigrants use technologies for socialization in new countries, but HCI scholars have not explored this research space. In my dissertation, I am adopting the social exchange theory to explore this research space. My first study suggested that trust is the key to addressing immigrants’ concerns about social exchange through technologies. Following this finding, my ongoing work will be focused on designing interventions to address these trust-related concerns. My dissertation should shed light on inclusive design supporting immigrants’ socialization, and inform research on other newcomers (e.g., domestic migrants and refugees) and specific forms of resource exchange (e.g., ridesharing and language exchange).

The key to successful adaptation for immigrants in a new country is their social capital, or those resources embedded in their social networks. Research suggests that information and communication technologies (ICTs) foster immigrants’ social capital and facilitate their adaptation. However, it is unclear how recent immigrants use ICTs to develop social capital and how this supports their adaptation needs. We performed semi-structured interviews with thirteen recent immigrants and five long-term immigrants. We found that ICTs and technology-mediated connections: (1) easily addressed immigrants’ settlement needs, (2) minimally addressed their financial and cultural needs, and (3) were not used to address their emotional needs. To support recent immigrants’ adaptation, we suggest ways for ICTs to (1) reduce uncertainty about meeting local-born populations, (2) foster reciprocity among immigrant communities, and (3) facilitate safe resource exchanges.

Prior research suggests that individuals are motivated to use People-Nearby Applications (PNAs) to meet new people offline and that these individuals receive benefits such as social and cultural capital from their offline connections. It is unclear, however, what the impetus behind these motivations are and whether individuals are motivated to use PNAs for other reasons. To explore these questions, we analyzed a dataset of 14 active PNA users' semi-structured interviews and found that participants' first experiences using PNAs were associated with significant life events such as moving to a new area or ending a relationship. We conducted an online survey (N = 142) to explore these findings further and investigate whether they generalized across a broader set of active PNA users. We confirm our past findings and contribute ways in which future technologies can detect specific life changes to increase the opportunities for individuals to benefit from PNAs

People-nearby applications (PNAs), such as Tinder and Badoo, help millions of users to make new social connections everyday. However, little is known about how PNAs support offline interactions or what application features are associated with offline encounters. Research suggests that these applications support the development of social capital, but the forms of social capital are unclear. We conducted interviews with 14 active PNA users to address these questions. Our results suggest that while existing PNA features such as filters, profile photos, and chat support online connections, most participants used non-PNA platforms to build mutual trust before meeting offline. In addition, PNA users developed two forms of social (informal and formal) and cultural capital (incorporated and symbolic). We offer insights into how PNAs and non-PNAs intersect to foster feelings of safety and trust prior to offline meetings, and we propose ways for PNAs to support the exchange of cultural and social capital.