Expert: Saudis waste eight hours a day on Internet

Saudis are “wasting” 8 hours a day on the Internet, a local expert said here recently.
Rashad Faqiha, a human development expert, said that 7.6 million Saudi users have accounts on Facebook, more than 4.8 million use Twitter, and more than 1 million are on LinkedIn. Moreover, Saudis view YouTube videos 290 million times a day.
“Saudi youth must learn that time is valuable and should invest it in developing successful professional careers, rather than spending it on social networking websites. Smartphones have played a big role in the youth wasting their time,” he said during a seminar held at King Khaled University.
Facebook is the leading social networking site frequented by Saudi users, according to a study carried out by The Online Project, an Internet public relations and social network brand management company in the Middle East.
The study pointed out that despite Saudis’ preference for Facebook, they are more active on Twitter, partly due to the high number of activity by sports fans on that social networking site.
According to the report, the ages of users in the Kingdom range between 24 and 35, with over 7.6 million Facebook users. Of them, 74 percent are male and 26 percent female. The majority, about 46 percent, fall between the ages of 18 and 23, while 28 percent are between the ages of 35 and 44. Only 16 percent of users are over the age of 45, the study revealed.
The report also found that 5 million people use Facebook in the Kingdom via their smartphones with 64 percent of them using Android and 32 percent using Apple devices.
More than half of all these members use Facebook in Arabic, about 51 percent, and about 72 percent of them leave comments and posts in Arabic. The Online Project pointed out that 2 percent of these posts include emoticons, with Saudi Facebook users using the happy face emoticon five times more than the sad face.