Research Report

Use of twitter among ZU female students and their social interactions on it

Maitha Ali ID: 200800914

Mariam Mohamed ID: 200701992

Mouza Al Mehairi ID:200819599

Nada Abdulla ID: 200721201

Introduction:

Twitter was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, and it had exploded from 3 million users in

2008 to 200 million in 2011 (Miller & Vega, 2011). The number of twitter users is increasing

and it is becoming one of the effective social networking sites world wild.

Therefore, there is a need to know about the use of twitter among Zayed University female

students, and their social interactions on it, and this is what this research is about.

Purpose:

This survey was conducted to explore more about the use of twitter among Zayed

University students since there are no studies done on them in this area. It focuses on when they

became familiar with it, what types of tweets they like the most and how they interact with other

users. The aim of the survey was to get a general idea of how students are familiar with twitter

and how they interact socially on it.

Literature review:

The fast growth of social networking sites make them very popular as the number of

users is increasing rapidly. The most popular social networking sites are Facebook, MySpace,

Twitter and Linked in. There are many researches done on the evolution of social networking

sites and this paper will analyze some of the researches done on twitter. “Twitter is the fastest

growing social network in the world” (Keenan, 2009). Therefore, there is a need to understand

how users interact with each other on twitter and what they most like about it.

Our research is about the use of twitter among Zayed University students’, their social

interactions on it and what they like most about it.

Regarding the most popular social networking sites people use (Facebook, MySpace,

Linked in and Twitter), Keenan (2009) examined these sites by studying what make these social

websites different than each other and how they encourage sociability and interactions between

their users.

Facebook and MySpace are the largest websites that receive the most coverage by

offering many features for their users. Linken in is unique that it is a professional network that

focus on a niche community. While twitter encourages sociability through simplicity and sharing

quick status updates by focusing on a niche technology.

This research was based on two sources to evaluate the websites, personal experience

with the websites and literature about the website.

The focus of this research was on the designs and the features of websites that encourage

social interaction on them. It did not study users interactions between each other and what they

most like about the websites. In addition, researchers depended on their own experience and the

features that are written in the websites. They did not conduct any surveys to evaluate the

websites.

There is a large number of youth use Facebook, a research by Yermolayeva (2009) was

undertaken to find out how and why the youth use Facebook and the amount of time they spent

on it. The study was done on 92 undergraduate students of 2 psychology classes in a university

by conducting surveys.

The research came out with that students use Facebook 2 hours every day during the

week, and nearly 3 hours every day on weekends. They use this site for the purpose of

communication, creating an identity for themselves and understand what is happening around

them.

This research focused on Facebook as it has the highest number of users between social

networking sites, but it is related to our study as it examines their habits and interests, and

Facebook is part of the social networking sites.

Recently Twitter has 200 millions of members who use it to connect to family member,

friends, co-workers build new relations and for marketing and business purposes. Its interface

permits its users to post short messages of up to 140 characters that can be read instantly by other

Twitter users (Huberman, Romero, and Wu, 2008).

A study was done on twitter by Huberman, Romero, and Wu (2008) to know how people

on twitter are pertinent to each other by looking at the number of the followers and following

that the users have, and looking over their posts(tweets). The researchers believed that people

with more followers are more active and interact more with their followers.

This article traces the quantity more than the quality. They focused on the number of

following and followers of twitter users more than who the users follow and who follows them.

In the meanwhile there are many online educators design a course based on the tools that

are available in the Learning Management System (LMS). In this regard, Lowenthal (2009)

indicated in his study that Twitter can play a major role to enhance the quality of the online

course through social interaction.

It enables students to keep in touch with their faculty and thereby clarify all their queries

and doubts instantly. In addition, it helps students to discuss their issues with a wider audience

in a professional manner that supports informal learning.

The only drawback of this tool is that it could be time consuming, addictive and

encourage the use of poor grammar. Some of the guidelines for the use of Twitter are that it has

to be relevant and the expectation for participation has to be clear (Lowenthal, 2009).

This articles focused on how students used twitter, and what things were posted, and

found out that there were daily chatter conversations.

According to a study done by Savage (2011), twitter is threatening the language, but it

does has important issues and topics are discussed in it. People tend to post lots of tweets each

day, and it’s mostly in nonsense and jargon language with lots of spelling mistakes. The

individuals keep tweeting about what they did and what they will do.

Savage said that many researchers agree that twitter has many discussions in political,

social, medical and academic fields which could makes twitter as the database of the coming

years.

This article focuses more on the negatives of twitter and hides the positives. It also

measures the researchers views not the public views of twitter. However, our research will be

done over people using twitter asking for their attitude and interpretations toward twitter.

Cole (2009) in his article talked about the privacy of personal information on social

networks. He discussed three reports in his article that emerged about the danger individuals face

because of privacy, and here are the main points discussed in each report:

A paper published by Stefan Weiss examines the threat posed to privacy by data

portability in social networks. The focus is on the technical ability of these social networking

sites and the need to protect users by installing adequate controls.

Another paper by Geoff Dick and Zainab De Souza discusses the motivation of children

to disclose personal information on the social networking sites. Unlike adults children show their

innocence by being open and trusting in sharing personal information.

One more paper on this subject by Kama Sharief and Jaeki Song shifts the focus from

social networking applications to the information sharing that is involved the electronic

communication available on E- mails.

Therefore longitudinal studies are needed to study the emerging trends in social

computing so as to ensure that policy makers and designers of social computing look into the

issue of privacy when these networking tools are used.

In conclusion, people on twitter interact and communicate with other users for

many reasons, and there are is a need to know what they most like about twitter. There are many

features that grab users attention and the use of social networking increase in the week ends

between youth. In addition, There is an academic benefit from using twitter for students to keep

in touch with their faculty. On the other hand, there are some threats of twitter on the language as

people do lots of spelling mistakes and use jargon language. Furthermore, the privacy becomes

an important concern.

There are no academic researches about twitter usage among Zayed University

students and their interactions on it. Therefore, conducting a survey among Zayed University

students in a good first step to get accurate information about their interactions on twitter, and

what they most like about it, as a significant group in the UAE.

Methodology:

The research method we choose is survey quantitative method. The study was done on

the students (audience). We used surveys because they are easy to conduct in the university and

to reach the target audience. The quantity of data that can be collected is more and there is high

flexibility for the interviewee. In addition, if there were any misunderstandings the interviewer

can explain the questions more for the respondent. Also there is more control on the sample with

face to face interviews and the speed of collecting data is higher. The results of the survey are

more open to interpretation and analysis.

The target population of our research were Zayed University female students. The sample

of our study was non-probability sampling, and the kind we chose was quota sampling. We used

this kind of sampling in order to represent the students in their different stages with the same

proportion in real life.

There were 30 students in our sample. We took the register of all the students from the

enrollment services and calculated the proportion of students in the three academic stages (ABP,

General, Major), and applied those proportions on 30 –the total number of our sample-.

There are 23% of students in the ABP program, 37% in General education and 40% are major

students. Therefore, we conducted 7 questionnaires on ABP students, 11 on General education

students and 12 on major students.

This sample method is indicative not representative of all Zayed University students because the

number of the sample is very small.

We designed the questionnaire with different types of questions including content,

demographic, filter and control questions. The different types of questions helps us in getting

more information from the interviewee.

In addition to the different types, we used two different formats of the questions lickert scale and

multiple choice questions.

Some of the multiple choice questions were multiple answer questions and some of them only

one answer. This format is related to the information that we want to get from the interviewee.

The different formats of the questionnaire will not make the interviewees feel bored while doing

it, and it helps in getting more information.

In order to make sure that the questionnaire is understandable and the questions are easy to fill

in, we pre-tested it on three people. There were few questions that needed some changes in the

format. We changed the format of the questions and pre-tested it on other three people and no

problems occurred. Then the survey was ready to run.

We administrated the survey inside the university. We used face to face method. This

way was easier for our questionnaire since we are using quota sampling method and we have

certain number of respondents we have to get from each academic stage.

Results and findings:

Twitter makes people active electronically and disconnected to real life?

34% of the respondents agreed that twitter Keeps people away from their normal lives and active

electronically. 33% were neutral and it’s too close to whom agreed. Only quarter of them

strongly agreed, and few of them only 8% disagreed with the statement.

Using twitter makes your friendship stronger?

All respondents showed positive feedback in this question. Almost half of them were neutral

that twitter makes their friendship stronger, 37% agreed and 17% strongly agreed.

How much time do you spend on twitter every day?

The response rates were very close in this question. 29% of respondents spend 1-2 hours on

twitter per day. The same proportion which is 21% was for respondents who spend 3-4 hours and

those who spend less than one hour every day. 17% are using it for 5 hours and more. The least

proportion 12% of them do not use twitter daily.

Which medium do you use for tweeting?

The percentages of respondents who use twitter through blackberry and the web are too close.

38% use it through their Blackberries and 36% through the web. The same percentage for people

who use twitter through iPad and iPhone which is 10% for each one. iPod was the least medium

used, only 2% use it.

When did you start using twitter?

More than half of the respondents started using twitter one year ago. 38% of them started using

twitter less than a year and 33% are on twitter one year ago. 21% are using it two years ago, and

only 8% are using it since three year. But no one has been using it for 4 years.

Set 1 demographic + content (Frequency)

When did you

start using

twitter

Which stage are you in

ABP General Major Total

Less than a yr 4 2 3 9

1 year 2 2 4 8

2 years 1 2 2 5

3 years 0 0 2 2

4 years 0 0 0 0

Answered

question

7 6 11 24

Set 1 demographic + content (Percentage)

When did

you start

using twitter

Which stage are you in

ABP General Major Total

Less than a

year

(57.1%)

(33.3%) (27.3%) (37.5%.)

1 year (28.6%) (33.3%) (36.4%) (33.3%)

2 years (14.3%) (33.3%) (18.2%) (20.8%)

3 years 0.00% 0.00% (18.2%) (8.3%)

4 years 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

The table 1 reveals that there has been a constant increase in the number of Twitter users

amongst the target group. The target group revealed that there was no one using Twitter for 4

years and there was a 8.3 % of people who had used it for 3 years which subsequently increased

to 20.8 % for people who used for 2 years and then further increased to 33.3 % for I year old

users. Furthermore the percentage of people who had used for less then one year was at a high of

37.5 %. This data reveals that Twitter popularity has gradually increased in the UAE and it is at

an all-time high now.

This trend is perfectly in line with the global trend also which has shown an increase of

around 10 million users every month with the figures for users as on March 2011 was 225

million and it was 165 million in October 2010. Therefore the trend that has been witnessed in

the study is in line with the global trend which is perfectly normal and also correct.

Another factor of importance is the type of people who are using Twitter. The study

shows that majority of students from the Academic bridge program (ABP) were using Twitter

with around 100 % increase being shown every year. However on the other hand the usage of

this has remained constant at 33.3 for each year. In the case of Major students there has actually

been a drop in the number of new users. This could be possible because the nature of the ABP

course demands that the students remain connected with each other all the time on account of

which it is popular among this group of students but the same cannot be said for other groups.

Set 2 content + content (Frequency)

How much

time do

you spend

on twitter

every day

Which medium do you use for tweeting?

Web Blackberry iphone IPod Ipad Other

I do not go

on twitter

everyday

2 2 1 0 1 0 3

Less than 1

hour

4 3 1 0 1 0 5

1-2 hours 4 6 0 1 3 1 7

3-4 hours 5 4 2 0 0 1 5

5 or more 3 4 1 0 0 0 4

Answered

question

18 19 5 1 5 2 24

Set 2 content + content (Percentage)

How much time

do you spend on

twitter every day

Which medium do you use for tweeting?

Web Blackberry

iphone

IPod Ipad Other

I do not go on

twitter everyday

11.1% 10.5% 20.0% 0.0% 20.0% 0.0% 13%

Less than 1 hour 22.2% 15.8% 0.0% 0.0% 20.0% 0.0% 21%

1-2 hours 22.2% 31.6% 40.0% 100% 60.0% 50% 29%

3-4 hours 27.8% 21.1% 20.0% 0.0% 0.0% 50% 21%

5 or more 16.7% 21.1% 20.0% 0.0% 0.00% 0.0% 17%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

The study has revealed that maximum number of twitters, tweet for 1-2 hours in day from

their various medium except for Web users who Tweet for more time. These figures are perfectly

normal considering that majority of the students spend their time at the university and in their

studies and so Tweeting for 1-2 hours during their spare time is perfectly normal.

Another important factor is that it is obvious that people who use their iphone are for

totally entertainment purpose and so during this period of entertainment they tweet which

suggests that students get only around 1-2 hours of free time for themselves in a day. This can be

seen from the graph which shows that all the people who own a Ipod Tweet for 1-2 hours in a

day. This is true because students who use other media maybe using them for academic purpose

also on account of which tweet is one of the activity which they may be involved in when they

are doing their course activity.

Set 3 content + content (Frequency)

Set 3 content + content (Percentage)

It is a well-known fact the Twitter has brought together people from different parts of the

world and made them friends instantly. Also it is very easy way to further strengthen friendship

since people can exchange messages on various topics of mutual interest thereby making their

friendship stronger. The graph also strengthens this view since 50 % of the people have strongly

agreed that Twitter strengthens friendship.

Also social sites such as Twitter are virtual sites which are connected electronically

thereby disconnecting real life connection which again has been strongly agreed by 50 % of the

people. This is obvious because Twitter friends rarely know how each one looks like or other

personal details but what keeps them connected is the electronic medium. Therefore while

friendship may become stronger on account of Twitter there are very strong chances that these so

called strong friendship may not actually be real because the true details are not known about the

other person. Also very often people tend to give wrong information for their personal details

which makes the medium to be doubted for accuracy when it comes to personal details.

The number of Twitter users is continuously increasing every day since people feel the

need to be connected with the outside world, all the time. This is particularly important because

in the present day on account of various reasons students do not have the time to meet up with

friends, chat with them or play games, as it was being done about a decade ago. In the past

friends were the only source of past time for most students but the present day electronic media

has changed everything. Due to this reason the present day students do not prefer to meet friends

but instead want to stay connected with the electronically. This is because the electronic media

offers a variety of services such as net browsing, games, music, chatting, E Mail etc which the

students prefer to do since it is more entertaining and also adds to the knowledge which may not

always happen when students meet each other personally outside the college. Therefore, on

account of the variety of services students prefer to remain connected by Twitter which justifies

the popularity of this social networking site. Therefore the electronic age has moved the people

from away real life to a virtual life connected electronically 24 x 7, which the present day

students find more convenient to use. Also the variety of medium that is available and the great

opportunity that it offers to strengthen friendship has made this social site very popular amongst

students.

Conclusion:

After doing this research and looking at other researches done about this topic, there are

no special researches done on this region about using of twitter among adults who are the main

users in the meanwhile. There is a need for a deep research about twitter usage among all

Emiratis not only on Zayed University students as twitter is becoming more popular and lots of

information are shared on it.

There is need to know what motivates Emiratis to use twitter and how they feel about the social

interaction on it as they care a lot about their relationships with others.

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