Motivations of Using Social Media Through Smartphones Among University Students in the United Arab Emirates

• 作者: Khayrat Ayyad
• 来源期刊: 新闻与大众传媒:英文版
• 学科: 社会科学
• 关键词: SOCIAL MEDIA MOTIVATIONS smartphones university’s STUDENTS UAE
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（2）
• 页码范围: 53-62
• 页数: 10页
• 分类号: G2

摘要

The aim of the study was to investigate gratifications of using social media among university students in the United Arab Emirates. Adopting the uses and gratification approach, the study investigates how the students utilize social media to gratify their personal, social, psychological, and educational needs. The study uses a questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 420 students from two universities in the UAE: University of Sharjah and Zayed University. In each university, two colleges were selected to represent art colleges and sciences colleges. The findings of the study show that 69.3% of the students are accessing social media more than five hours daily. 79.0% of the students access the social media through their smartphones. The main social media accessed are WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. The main reasons of using social media are seeking information, communicating with friends, consuming time, and following up public affairs.