1.06 AM Friday, 29 March 2024
  • City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
  • Dubai 04:57 06:11 12:27 15:53 18:37 19:51
29 March 2024

Half of Emirati male teens have strangers as internet friends

Published
By Staff

Internet has become an addition for Emirati teens, according to a survey released today.

2012 AMRB TRU teens study revealed that Emirati males are more internet savvy than girls involved in a lot more online activities then girls, like playing games online and visit news/sports websites.

Around 1 in 2 Emirati male teens are friends with strangers, have online friends whom they have never met before and never plan to meet in future, the survey results showed.

Around 46 per cent of Emirati teens said they eat while surfing the internet. Another 46 per cent watch TV – likelihood of them doing all three – surfing, eating and watching TV!

Only 40 per cent of the Emirati teens claimed that they have used Internet to research for their school project/work against 71 per cent globally.

Around nine out of 10 Emirati teenagers use smartphones to go online and treat them as style enhancers.

It also revealed that Mena teenagers are more tech savvy and engage in more online activities compared to the average global teens. They do maximise each and every single service available on the net – from using search engines, to social networking, to watching music videos, to playing games.

Looking for information via search engines is the top activity among teens at a global, regional and country level. Visiting social networking sites is almost unanimous – at least nine out of ten have logged on to their social networking account, higher among older teenagers.

Correspondences (e.g. e-mail, chatting and instant messaging) are also very popular online activities more so among older teens probably because they have more friends than the younger ones. Using location based services is something which is very commonly used by a Emirati teen as compared to a global teen. Watching TV shows/ movies online is also a popular internet activity – especially high among Emirati females.