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Percentage of men and women subscribing to Muslima.com by country of residence. Courtesy of Diminescu and Renault ( 2011 , p. 693).
Source publication
In this article, we will discuss what is known about a surprisingly popular phenomenon in the Middle East-the use of social media to communicate. We will begin with a discussion of what "social media" sites are (sites such as Facebook, Your Middle East, YouTube, Flickr, Muslima.com, chat rooms, and instant messaging) and point out how common they a...
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Ghosting (i.e., terminating communication with another person on social media without explanation) has become an all-too-common occurrence. Prior scholarship has predominantly focused on adverse effects of being ghosted on individuals’ well-being and mainly investigated the phenomenon within romantic relationships. By contrast, its occurrence withi...
Citations
... People have long established contact with strangers even before technology was in place. This is illustrated by the popularity of pen pal letters abroad [67]. This concept supported the decision to design a fully digital intervention and not encourage each match to meet in person during the study. ...
Background
Intervention development is a critical stage. However, evidence indicates that the substandard reporting of intervention details is widespread.
Objective
This study aimed to provide an overview of the guiding frameworks, methodology, and stages for the design and construction of a new complex intervention—the Phone Pal.
Methods
The intervention development process followed the Medical Research Council framework for developing complex interventions as well as the person-based approach. The intervention was developed following the evidence synthesis of a literature review, a focus group study, and a survey after consultation and input from advisory groups with a range of stakeholders, including patients, volunteers, clinicians, and academics.
Results
The developed logic model outlines the contextual factors, intervention, mechanisms of change, and short- and long-term outcomes. The operationalized intervention required matching 1 patient with 1 volunteer to communicate with each other through a smartphone via SMS text messages, WhatsApp messages or email, and audio or video calls. Each participant was encouraged to communicate with their match at least once per week for a 12-week period using informal conversation.
Conclusions
The systematic process and theoretically sound strategy through which this intervention was developed can provide insights to future researchers on the reality of developing and preparing the operationalization of a digital intervention using multiple components.
... The pandemic-related communication crisis affected the couple's relationship in terms of sexual satisfaction and created a kind of dissatisfaction and feelings of anxiety in sexual relations (de Pedraza, Guzi, & Tijdens, 2020;Osur, Ireri, & Esho, 2021). In Iran, despite the existence of Islamic penal law, filtering, censorship, and cyber police, social media plays a critical role in people's lives especially during the COVID-19 pandemic (Hatfield & Rapson, 2015;Piela, 2010;Sotoudeh, Friedland, & Afary, 2017). Studies show that people in countries with more limitations and penal laws are more interested in online relationships and cybersex. ...
... The expansion of communication technologies has caused some paradoxical and controversial conditions for traditional Muslim families in terms of the relationships between men and women (Hatfield & Rapson, 2015;Sakr, 2004). In fact, one major reason for using the Internet is having online dates with the opposite sex. ...
... Romantic chat has given the users a sense of freedom due to the pervasion of hopelessness. New social networks let young Muslim women live under Islamic laws, and at the same time, communicate in order to meet and engage in forbidden relationships in more conservative Middle Eastern countries (Abu-Lughod, 1998;Hatfield & Rapson, 2015;Wheeler, 2007). The narrative analysis of romantic relationships between online partners in conservative communities has also been considered among Indian Facebook users who tried to find romantic partners anonymously and interact with the opposite sex outside of the circle of people they knew. ...
... Now a days online health disciplines are allowing their clients/ patients to share their problems and issues [2] . The internet and social media are used for social interaction [3] . Worldwide internet users are 3.2 billion [4] . ...
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Mental health is playing an important role in our daily life. Now a days depression is the second most common illness in the world. Online social networking is one of the risk factors to mental illness, and objective is to determine the usage of social networking sites (SNS) and level of depression among undergraduate students. METHODOLOGY: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam- Sindh with simple random sampling through self-administrated questionnaires. Sample size was calculated on a prevalence rate of 50%, students ranging from 17-28 years, using SNS were included while those having any chronic illness were excluded. Ethical approval was obtained from Health Services Academy Islamabad, anonymity confidentiality, and privacy was assured. SPSS version 20.0 was used, and chi-square was applied to find the association. RESULTS: Out of 212 students, the respondents consisted mainly of male students n=165 (77.8%), among them, 52 (24.5%) students were of age 19 years and 76 (35.8%) were in first-year class. Results reveal that the frequently used SNS was Facebook 169 (79.7%). The students using these sites for more than 4 years were 28 (13.2%). Among the SNS users, 142(67%) were having moderate depression, while 9 (4.2%) had severe depression. Male students have more online friends (p <0.001) and tend to login more times on SNS as compared to female students (p=0.023). CONCLUSION: The usage of social networking sites is more among undergraduate university students, especially males. Most of the students suffered from moderate depression. There may be a link between SNS usage and depression among undergraduate university students.
... In the Middle East, where the rise of social media usage is increasing exponentially [6], this study focuses on finding how social media impact their marital life. ...
... Ideal Time spent on SM6. Top Causes to Negatively Impact a relationship: Some participants realized that social media has affected their relationships negatively. ...
As social animals, we are in need to communicate, collaborate and express our feelings and thoughts. But today our way of communication has changed; internet and social media occupied the imperious part of our lives. Now, community depend upon social media more than face to face communication to express themselves. But the use and role of social media vary from person to person. Growing evidence has shown that the social media has become the top addiction of present day time, which is affecting people’s life not only as individual but also as a community. Social media addiction also proved to be the cause of negative impact on the relationship especially among couples. As of fact, role of social media on the lives of couples is vacillating. In one prospect, social media is the source of getting support, while at the other end it is the cause of conflicts and some negative feelings among couples. This paper specifically aims at studying the impact of social media on the lives of couples in Middle East. For this purpose, a survey study was conducted, where almost 287 respondents participated. Results indicates that social media is the major cause of negative impact on the lives of couples.
... Chatting based communication has been done by many people of smartphone users because of its effectiveness and efficiency [2], [4]- [6]. Communication by chatting is a form of the most effective textual communication used [4], e.g. the textual conversation using the smartphone by social media, chatting with WA, telegram, etc [3], [5], [7]. ...
Development of prototype at data security through secret messages is needed
for disguising the messages sent in smartphone chatting application,
WhatsApp (WA) Chat. We propose a model to disguise a plaintext message
which is first encrypted by cryptosystem to change the plaintext message to
ciphertext. Plaintext or plainimage entering the smartphone system is
changed into encrypted text; receiver then can read the message by using
similar key with the sender. The weakness of this proposal is the message
random system is not planted directly in the chatting application; therefore
message removing process from cryptosystem to WA application is still
needed. The strength of using this model is the messages sent will not be
easily re-encrypted by hacker and can be used at client computing section.
... Chatting based communication has been done by many people of smartphone users because of its effectiveness and efficiency [2], [4]- [6]. Communication by chatting is a form of the most effective textual communication used [4], e.g. the textual conversation using the smartphone by social media, chatting with WA, telegram, etc [3], [5], [7]. ...
Development of prototype at data security through secret messages is needed for disguising the messages sent in smartphone chatting application, WhatsApp (WA) Chat. We propose a model to disguise a plaintext message which is first encrypted by cryptosystem to change the plaintext message to ciphertext. Plaintext or plainimage entering the smartphone system is changed into encrypted text; receiver then can read the message by using similar key with the sender. The weakness of this proposal is the message random system is not planted directly in the chatting application; therefore message removing process from cryptosystem to WA application is still needed. The strength of using this model is the messages sent will not be easily re-encrypted by hacker and can be used at client computing section.
... Yet, these technologies have largely been rejected by Saudi Arabian culture. Take for instance, the number of Saudis subscribed to Muslima.com, one of the biggest Muslim matrimonial websites, is one of the lowest in Muslim countries [24]. This is due to many factors: First, it reflects the traditional and religious conservative culture of Saudi Arabia, especially with their concerns for privacy [3]. ...
... Elmasry [31] analyzed how different people used Facebook and Hatfield and Rapson [24] examined how culture shapes the use of technology in the Middle East. Guta [20] assesses how Saudi females use social media to negotiate and express their identity, which included finding a spouse. ...
... Saudi's conservative culture has mostly followed traditional matchmaking through personal connections [11]. With social media becoming more prevalent [24] and improved awareness of potential health issues of marrying relatives, marrying non-relatives has increased [41]. Nevertheless, issues such as trust [5], privacy [1][2][3], and maintaining long distance relationships [7] manifest as roadblocks to accepting the use of technology for matchmaking. ...
Websites and applications that match and connect individuals for romantic purposes are commonly used in the Western world. However, there have not been many previous investigations focusing on cultural factors that affect the adoption of similar technologies in religiously conservative non-Western cultures. In this study, we examine the socio-technical and cultural factors that influence the perceptions and use of matchmaking technologies in Saudi Arabia. We report the methods and findings of interviews with 18 Saudi nationals (nine males and nine females) with diverse demographics and backgrounds. We provide qualitatively generated insights into the major themes reported by our participants related to the common approaches to matchmaking, the current role of technology, and concerns regarding matchmaking technologies in this cultural con-text. We relate these themes to specific implications for designing marital matchmaking technologies in Saudi Arabia and we outline opportunities for future investigations.
... We asked respondents whether they used the Internet to access online dating websites, and to arrange dates. In the Muslim world, online dating has increasingly taken its place among other mate selection strategies (Hatfield and Rapson, 2015). 2 Online dating usually refers to an online matchmaking platform with user profiles that remain anonymous until the matched individuals decide to meet offline. ...
... **p < .01; ***p < .001. that finds men are more active on these media networks in talking to and seeking romantic partners Chakraborty, 2012;Hatfield and Rapson, 2015). Romantic practices in the cyberspace are associated with romantic practices in the physical space. ...
Social media creates new virtual public spaces where young women and men living in socially conservative non-Western societies can communicate in order to meet and engage in forbidden intimacies. In this essay, using survey data on thousands of Facebook users from Muslim-majority countries, we look at the relationship between romance in public physical spaces and cyberspaces. To what extent do Facebook users make use of the Internet to pursue romance? And what are the attributes of individuals who use it in this way?
Objectives: Elopement among adolescent girls is a growing problem in Saudi Arabia. The complex contributing factors to this often intersect. Existing efforts to understand elopement and possible related factors, however, have yet to empirically operationalize a multidimensional model of teenage girls’ elopement and to assess its associations to different factors. Methods: This mixed methods research explored the related factors to girls’ elopement qualitatively from a volunteered sample of 20 foster care experts. Based on their answers, a conceptual model was hypothesized and a structural questionnaire was developed and administered to a sample of teenage girls (N = 450, 16–18 years). Results: Adolescent girls’ elopement was significantly and directly associated with deviant friends and low religious faith, as well as with media and technology use; but not with being in love and having fun, and age. The indirect relationship between elopement and family conflict and relationships was significant when deviant friends and low religious faith was a mediator. Conclusions: Adolescent girls’ elopement is a complex problem especially when studying it in a traditional society and religious culture such as in Saudi Arabia. This complexity can be seen in the direct and indirect relationships between elopement and its related factors.
