On the Scale in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Facebook vs. Snapchat

This research aims to analyse the practices adopted by social media users in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), specifically users of Facebook and Snapchat. To collect data from participants, a questionnaire was used, generating 915 responses. The analysis of the data shows a clear preference for Snapchat over Facebook in the KSA, where 89% of the participants have accounts on Snapchat compared to 66% of them with accounts on Facebook. Moreover, the preference for Snapchat over Facebook has been clearly shown in the daily usage of participants, where 83% of those with Snapchat accounts can be described as very active users. They have accessed their Snapchat accounts at least once a day compared to only 15% of Facebook users. Different reasons were provided by the participants explaining the practices they adopted. We believe that such research could help social media applications' designers and policy makers to understand the behaviour of users in the KSA when using social media applications and the rationale behind their behaviour and preferences. This understanding could help improve the performance of current applications and new ones.