Arab Youth and Social Media
This is an extract from my new report “State of Social Media, Middle East: 2018,” which was co-written with Payton Bruni and published earlier this year. Read the Executive Summary and other sections on Market Context, Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat and Bitmoji, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram.
“Young Arabs are now getting their news first on social media, not television,” Sunil John, founder and CEO, ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, told technology website ZDNet.
“…Our survey reveals almost two thirds (63 %) of young Arabs say they look first to Facebook and Twitter for news. Three years ago, that was just a quarter.”
His conclusions stem from the company’s 10th annual Arab Youth Survey.
Findings in the Arab Youth survey derived from 3,500 face-to-face interviews with Arab men and women aged 18 to 24, in 16 countries and territories across the region.
Nearly half of young Arabs (49%) say they get their news on Facebook daily, the survey also found, up from 35% last year.
- 61% of those surveyed also say they use Facebook more frequently than a year ago.
Despite this popularity of social media as a source for news, Arab youth reported that CNN is the most trustworthy news source (75%), ahead of the BBC (72%). The regional satellite company MBC was ranked at 71%, the same as Facebook.
Saudi Gazette, reported that 80% of Saudi millennials claim to visit YouTube daily… 55% consume more video online than they do on TV.”
Egyptian Streets, an independent english language website, asked “Is Social Media Making Egyptian Youth Less Productive?” mirroring concerns researchers around the world have been exploring for some time. 22 million people access in Egypt every day, they noted, with largest age group of these users is aged 18–34.
“According to a short online survey which 50 young people between 18–24 in Egypt took, Egyptian Streets found that 90% said that they found social me- dia to have a negative affect on their productivity and 85% saw that it also impacted their psychological health. on their productivity and 85% saw that it also impacted their psychological health.”
Read more about social media in the Middle East by downloading the full study today from the University of Oregon Scholars’ Bank, or view it online via Scribd, SlideShare, ResearchGate and Academia.Edu.
