دوافع استخدام طلبة الجامعات.. الهواتف الذكية و الإشباعات المتحققة منها : دراسة مسحية مقارنة بين الطلاب الخليجين و اليمنين

Abstract EN

Smart phones have gained crucial importance as the most prominent modern means of communication.

Their interactive capacities and ad-vanced technology have made them of the most influential and most spread out means of media and communication in our time.

This study aims at discovering the motives behind the use of smart phones by the university students in Yemen and the Gulf and the gratifications attached to that use.

This study is based on a convenience sample of 343 university students from Yemen, UAE and Saudi Arabia; an online questionnaire has been used to collect the data on their uses of smart phones and the gratifica-tions thereto.

The study shows that the social media applications are the most promi-nent applications accessed by university students users of smart phones in Yemen and the Gulf as they are accessed by more than %90 of the sample.

'Obtaining information' is the most practical motive that prompts the university students participating in the sample to use smart phones while the instructive gratifications gained by Gulf and Yemeni university students from using smart phones focus on increasing information.

Test of hypothesis reveals statistically significant differences in the fre-quency of using smart phones due to differences in the respondents' na-tionalities.

Saudi university students show the most frequent usage of smart phones, followed by Emiratis, while Yemenis use smart phones with the least frequency.

Additionally, there were statistically significant differences in the ritual motives for using smart phones due to nationality differences.

Saudi uni-versity students use smart phones for entertainment more than the oth-ers.