(Correction: Use of Arabic in the Gulf countries amended to reflect the percentage decrease over the time period, not the overall usage in each country).
Use of the Arabic language on social media is on the rise in the Arab region, but still remains low in the Gulf region, where the majority of residents are foreign workers, according to the findings of a new study released on Sunday.
The seventh and latest edition of the Arab Social Media Report, which was produced by Dubai-backed Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government, found the percentage of social media posts written in Arabic rose to 55 percent in 2016, up from 43 percent two years ago, with Arab North African countries leading the trend.
On Twitter the usage was even higher, with the Arabic language used in 72 percent of the 31 million surveyed tweets last year.
However, while 95 percent of Facebook posts in Yemen were in Arabic, the trend was not reflected in the Arab Gulf region, where local Arab nationals are generally in the minority. The percentage of Facebook posts in Arabic fell the most in Oman (down by 16 percent between 2016 and 2014), followed by Qatar (down 6 percent), Bahrain (down 5.3 percent), Saudi Arabia (down 4.8 percent), the UAE (down 3.6 percent) and Kuwait (down 2 percent).
The Gulf region, which is well-known for its lavish malls and retail opportunities, also showed differences in the gender profile of Arab social media users. While around a third of users in the Arab region are women, this drops to 24.6 percent in the Gulf region, compared to 36 percent in North Africa.
The professional networking site Linkedin saw a lower percentage of women among its Arab users, especially in Saudi Arabia, but overall it showed strong growth, with the number of Arab users growing 22 percent to reach 16.6 million users by the end of January 2017. Around 20 percent of the Arab region’s Linkedin users are based in the UAE, the report said, followed by 16.2 percent in Saudi Arabia and 15.6 percent in Egypt.
“The Gulf, especially the UAE and Saudi Arabia are seen as business hubs in the region and are very attractive to people searching for jobs,” Fadi Salem, the author of the report, told Zawya on Sunday.
Salem said he did not think the rise in use of Linkedin in the Gulf region over the last three years was directly related to the economic slowdown that followed the sharp drop in oil prices, but due to the fluid business-attractive environment in the region.
The results of a poll by recruitment site Bayt.com, released in late January, found 98 percent of respondents plan to look for a new job in 2017. Read more here.
Overall, Facebook remained the most popular social media platform in the Arab region, reflecting global trends, with the number of Arab users of the platform rising to 156 million in early 2017, compared to 115 million a year earlier.
With the number of Facebook accounts in the Arab region having than doubled in the last three years, penetration rates have reached almost 95 percent, especially in Qatar and the UAE.
On Twitter, the Arab world generated 27.4 million tweets per day in March 2016, up from 17.2 million tweets two years earlier, the report said. More than half of the Arab tweets were generated from two countries, with Saudi Arabia responsible for around 33 percent of all tweets in the Arab region, followed by Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, accounting for 18 percent.
