Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Professor of Sociology at the College of Arts - Sultan Qaboos University
2
Assistant Professor of Media, College of Arts, Sultan Qaboos University
3
Researcher, Department of Sociology, College of Arts, Sultan Qaboos University
Abstract
This study revealed the multiplicity of communication applications that young people depend on to satisfy their needs through the smart phone, and those applications were: WhatsApp, Viber, YouTube, and if WhatsApp comes in the first order, as almost all the respondents use it. The study revealed that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram dominate the uses of the respondents, and to a lesser extent, Google Plus, and the forums are ranked last in terms of usage. Among the most notable results is that more than two-thirds of the research sample use smart phone social networking applications to communicate with others for more than two hours per day, and there are (17%) of the sample use a smart phone in social communication for more than five hours per day, and the percentage decreases. People using communication applications for less than an hour. There are many motives motivating social communication among young people, the research sample through the smart phone, and the main motive for that is communicating with friends and colleagues, in addition to other motives, most notably the exchange of news about the study, and then the exchange of world news, and in the last order comes the motive of "exchanging songs and videos."
With regard to alienation, the study revealed the variation in the effects resulting from relying on network communication through the smart phone and its repercussions on the levels of alienation among young people especially among males in comparison to females, and there is an average effect of the study sample's dependence on smart phones in the process of social communication in relation to alienation as a whole, although the effects are clear in the dimensions The four groups of alienation are represented by “loss of norms,” “lack of affiliation,” “social isolation,” and “loss of meaning.” This result means that over-reliance on smart phones may gradually lead to the alienation of individuals from their social contexts, and their plunge into virtual groups in cyberspace
Keywords
)
مشاهدة على SCiNiTO