Facebook users in United Arab Emirates: Underlying the factors and demographic analysis

Abstract

This study examined the use of Facebook in United Arab Emirates. There were two objectives of this study. The first purpose was to identify the motive for the use of Facebook among people in U.A.E. This study conducted the survey using both qualitative and quantitative methods. One hundred eighty-three working people were used from the survey. Thirty-five questions identified from the interviews were used for the questionnaire design in quantitative method. Factor analysis showed six factors namely usefulness, usage, reliability, making new friends, ethical issue and openness of information. The total variance explained by all the factors was fifty-two percent. This study also examined the demographic variables whether they would play an important role in using the social network site. The study included two more variables, income and married status, which were not frequently examined by previous studies. MANOVA showed statistical significant differences (p < .01) across six factors. ANOVA results showed that gender variable affected only the factor of openness of information. Males were more likely to share their information compared to females. Income variable affected all the factors except the openness of information. The results showed that high-income people had the highest meanscores on three factors (usage, reliability, making new friends) while low-income people had the highest means on usefulness and ethical factors.Marital status had significant effects on usefulness, reliability, and ethical factors. Married people had the low scores on reliability and ethical factors. Lastly, education variable had no effect on all the factors examined.