According to a recent study by the Arab Social Media Report on the development of social networks in the Arabic language, published in June, the number of Arab women living in the Middle East region, including in the UAE, and using the social network Facebook, increased by 3.5% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. This indicator, however, remains one of the lowest in comparison with other regions of the world.
Analyzing the growing popularity of social networks in the Middle East, Arab Social Media Report researchers note that the total number of women using them amounted to 33.5% over the indicated period, whereas last year this indicator reached 32%. Globally, the number of users of female social networks is 61%. Social networking is becoming an integral part of everyday life in the Arab world. Residents of the GCC countries are among the most active users of the YouTube service, and the fastest growing group of users of Facebook and Twitter.
According to the report, the total number of Facebook users on a global scale has almost doubled since April 2010 and reached 27 million people on April 5 of this year. As for the social network Twitter, at the end of March this year, the total number of users from Arab countries amounted to 1,150,292. It should be noted that users from GCC countries significantly exceeded users from other countries in the Middle East region in terms of the number of posts on Twitter. About 60% of them in the first quarter were created by users from Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, as well as Egypt.
