Social media platforms are a major craze with female students at the King Saud University (KSU) with about 95 percent of them admitting they were habitual users of YouTube, while Twitter and Facebook found favor with 88 percent and 46 percent of the girls respectively.

Local media reported that a study conducted by researcher Asma bint Saad on 483 random respondents, all undergraduates at the KSU, found 44.9 percent of the students spending 1-3 hours on social media and 45 percent preferring to use smart phones to access such media.

The favorite media for students are YouTube, Twitter, Google, e-forums, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, and MySpace, the study revealed.

Spending leisure time topped the list of students’ motivation and concern as they seek social media, followed by looking for information on current developments and, thirdly, entertainment and recreational purposes, the researcher told the daily. The students knew more about topics that surface on social media and they shared them with family members and relatives, the researcher said.

Moreover, the students have expressed belief that social media had become a necessity and inevitable that helped them select topics of their interest. The social media has been instrumental to help change patterns toward different issues, she said.

Based on viewpoints of the students, the positive aspects of social media lie in openness, spread of knowledge, expertise in the Arab World and boosting national and Islamic values. The negative aspects centered on the spread of western culture among Muslim communities and spending less time with family members, the researcher pointed out.