Social media accused of weakening family bonding

A psychologist says that social networks, WhatsApp in particular, humiliate the Saudi and Gulf men.
During a lecture on skills in promoting family bonding, organized by Women's College of Education at Dammam University, Mustafa Abu Al-Saad warned that social media publish negative thoughts about marriage, ease divorce through making it familiar to the community, as well as provide wrong percentages for divorce cases.
The lecture was organized in collaboration with Weaam Organization and Establish Your Life Center. The attendees were mostly university students.
Al-Saad said that one of the main causes behind the rise of divorce rate is family consulting centers that try to solve family problems, even if they are not qualified to do so. He explained that in Saudi society, marriage partners get to know each other only after marriage, and that true love between couples flourishes after one to two years of marriage.
"Love is the basis of the universe and relations, and man should love woman to get her respect, while woman should respect man to get his love," he added.
Al-Saad said: "If the man takes care of his appearance only, he becomes like a doll that tries to please other."
Al-Saad added that the common perception of Saudi and Gulf families is that they suffer from high rate of separation and divorce, although the divorce rate in the GCC does not exceed 2 percent.
According to him, major challenges facing the family are the lack of dialogue between husband and wife, unclear priorities and economic pressure.
Divorce cases are fewer among long-time partners because of their ability to resolve family problems, while the newly-wed resort more to divorce as a solution to any problem they face, Al-Saad stressed.
"Most couples have the wrong idea that for a successful marriage both partners should have identical views on everything." Al-Saad said.
Abdulrahman Al-Ghannam said that social media are a big source that can give you an advantage or disadvantage in having a relationship with your partner.
Al-Ghannam said: "When you are dealing with social media, you are dealing with big data. It’s simply not possible to read the 1 billion tweets or What'sApp broadcasts produced every two-and-a-half days. In order to properly understand this data, we need to make use of computer-assisted processing and combine this with human evaluation to put information in context."
Abdullah Nasser Al-Osaimi, a student, said information, regardless of its accuracy, spreads rapidly through social media, reaching and influencing millions of readers.
He said: "In special instances, false information and stories achieve viral status, where a large number of people receive the material within hours. Unfortunately, oftentimes the information is incorrect, yet people accept it as true."