A Data Analysis Investigation of Smart Phone

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April 10, 2020 12:47:19pm WSPC/188-JIKM 2040005 ISSN: 0219-6492
Journal of Information & Knowledge Management

Vol. 19, No. 1 (2020) 2040005 (18 pages)
.c World Scienti¯c Publishing Co.
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DOI: 10.1142/S0219649220400055
A Data Analysis Investigation of Smart Phone

by UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM on 04/13/20. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.
and Social Media Use by Syrian Refugees
Marwa Ahmad
Global Society Studies
Doshisha University, Kyoto
cymb1302@mail3.doshisha.ac.jp
Published 14 April 2020

J. Info. Know. Mgmt. Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com
Abstract. A descriptive statistics approach is applied to analyse a newly collected dataset from Young
Syrian Refugees in Lebanon. The aim of the paper is to empirically document the uses and grati¯cations of
YSRs smartphone and social media use. Results indicated that the majority of YSRs use Facebook and
WhatsApp for communications and entertainment purposes. Frequency analysis was used to determine
the rate at which YSRs own and utilise smartphones and Social Networking Sites. Findings indicate that
males head of households purchased smartphones for wives, younger sisters and mothers. Cross tabulation
analysis of the role of gender on uses and grati¯cations of smartphones yielded an exclusion e®ect due to
cultural consideration. This paper opens up new horizons in the use of information technology for im-
proving the living conditions of refugee populations.
Keywords: Young Syrian refugees; uses and grati¯cations theory; social capital; descriptive statistics and
data analysis.
1. Introduction
Anecdotal evidence through media reports has rendered smartphones as a \lifeline"
for Syrian refugees and asylum seekers (Alencar, 2018). Syrians who °ed violence in
their homeland have heavily relied on their devices to maintain contact with rela-
tives at home, seek potential destinations abroad and facilitate everyday life chal-
lenges such as obtaining new forms of employment, housing and social capital. In a
nutshell, a smartphone for a Syrian refugee or an asylee constitutes an indispensable
asset through which many important life ends are met. More importantly, smart-
phones could be used to alleviate some of the imminent problems facing the Syrian
refugees and asylees populations including the provision of educational and
healthcare services (Kaplan, 2018).
Research on the uses and grati¯cations of smartphones among Syrian refugees
and asylees is an emerging area of scholarship. Studies have explored the types of
smartphones, social media applications and SNS platforms utilised among di®erent
refugee populations, those in Europe or in Lebanon and Jordan. They have
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investigated the challenges facing Syrian refugees along their e±cient and e®ective
use of smartphones and social media. Additionally, researchers have examined the
e®ect of gender on the patterns of smartphone usage among Syrian refugees espe-
cially the young among them, living in camps or making the journey towards
European or North American destinations. Much of this research concludes that the
use of smartphones among Syrian refugees increase the frequency and intensity of
social capital in their communities.

Notwithstanding this qualitative-based literature, none of the existing studies
evaluated the uses and grati¯cations among young Syrian refugees (YSRs) residing
across Lebanon. Moreover, none of the existing studies explore the e®ects of such
uses on the development of social capital among Syrian communities living in
Lebanon. A major limitation of the current scholarship on refugees' uses of smart-
phones and social media platforms among Syrian refugees is that they only focus on
the earlier phases of their settlement in Western Europe or North America.
To contribute to the research on vulnerable populations' use of their mobile

devices, particularly of young refugees, this data analytic based study utilises
descriptive statistics approach to document YSRs uses and grati¯cations in Lebanon.
It found that two major themes: communications and entertainment, de¯ne the usage
patterns of YSRs to their smartphones and social media. Further, information seeking
and sharing behaviour were reported as two important uses among YSRs. Informa-
tion-based behaviours re°ect the need to migrate among young Syrians. This research
con¯rms earlier ¯ndings in the general uses and grati¯cations research. Nonetheless, it
challenges the widely cited explanatory variables for explaining the usage patterns.
This research highlights the signi¯cance of psychological needs among vulnerable
populations in determining how individuals use their smartphones.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Social media use and Syrian refugees
In 2018, Gillespie et al. concluded in their French-based qualitative study of Syrian
refugees that \smartphones are lifelines, as important as water and food. They a®ord
the planning, navigation, and documentation of journeys, enabling regular contact
with family, friends, smugglers, and those who help them." (Gillespie et al., 2018). In
another large-scale survey of 964 smartphone users in 2017, Ramadan found that
Facebook served as a facilitator for familial and community collaboration, resource
sharing and identity formation tool among Syrian refugees (Ramadan, 2017). Mobile
phones, the internet and social media applications increase the agency of YSRs by
expanding the horizons of their cultural, economic and social futures by awarding
them a free world where restrictions on mobility and imagination are non-existent.
Ramadan's study examining the uses and grati¯cations data obtained from social
media platforms used by the Syrian refugees living in Jordan, does not administer
extensive validated instruments covering relevant domains of previously identi¯ed
dimensions among contributor scholars to the uses and grati¯cations of popular
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A Data Analysis Investigation of Smart Phone and Social Media Use by Syrian Refugees
social media platforms such as Facebook (Ramadan, 2017). In this case, the present
paper addresses all of the aforementioned limitations in the scholarship on smart-
phones' uses among Syrian refugees in Lebanon. It also sheds light on the rela-
tionship between such uses and how the overall family structure is rede¯ned.
Research on social media use and Syrian refugees has been an emerging trend in
global studies. The present literature sheds light on several arenas of inquiry in-
cluding: the type of social platforms used by the vulnerable population, the uses and
grati¯cations of the migrant population, the e®ects of social media use on the refugee
populations' social well-being such as familial relationships, community building,
human tra±cking and exploitation.
Research has indicated that Syrian refugees utilise Facebook and WhatsApp
more than other available platforms on their smartphones given the relative
a®ordability of such devices compared to laptops, PCs or other types of technologies.
Syrian refugees utilise social media platforms to primarily communicate with the
social networks, but also, to access critical information to their survival in exile. Be it
relevant to their seeking of asylum and possible destinations for migration, most
extremely, or simply to fetch employment opportunities and news of cheapest rent,
as an example.
Along with the above mentioned, social media applications provide refugees with
real timely information on routes of migration, border closures, job creation and
international organisations' help (Dekker and Engbersen, 2013). They also provide
them with virtual spaces where they could express themselves freely without dealing
with any sort of restrictions structurally embedded in their culture. Noteworthy,
however, social media use was also found to be employed by the refugees seeking
contact with smugglers through Facebook, for instance, to potentially reach a
European country that would help them ful¯l their desire for economic betterment,
in addition to securing a safer environment for their kids' future (No author, 2016).
Other reports found Syrian refugees reporting much higher use of social media
platforms after leaving their homeland, due to the absence of busy schedules and the
monotonicity of their lifestyles in camps.
2.2. Social media platforms of choice

Syrian refugees utilise WhatsApp, and Facebook on their smartphones more than
other available platforms such as Viber, Imo, YouTube, Ping, Google Maps, among
others. This is because most of their contacts utilise the same platforms increasing
the likelihoods to reach the intended recipient and to improve their social networks.
In one study in the Netherland, Syrian refugees were found to prefer social media
platforms over other internet applications or TV programs, including: \Facebook,
Youtube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber and Google." (Alencar,
2018). The author also suggested that Syrian refugees preferred Lime over Skype
given its spread among Syrians.
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Whereas, Dekker et al. suggested in his analysis of 54 in-depth interviews with

Syrian asylum seekers in the Netherlands in 2016, that Syrian migrants utilise
smartphones as an information platform to collect, process and determine infor-
mation related to migration, destinations and legal consultation (Dekker et al.,
2018). Their research indicated that social media mediums including Facebook,
LinkedIn and WhatsApp are largely visited by current and prospective Syrian
asylum migrants, concluding that smartphones were the most utilized devices before
and during asylum seeking processes by Syrian migrants.
Finally, Dekker's study revealed that 80% of respondents utilised Facebook and
LinkedIn while 63% suggested the use of WhatsApp and Ping. Voice over IP (VOIP)
such as Skype or Viber were also heavily used by the sample, with 47% of partici-
pants. While an earlier investigation by Maitland and Xu in the Zaa'tari Camp,
found that 89% of Syrian refugees owned smart phones and 85% at least had 1 SIM
card. The study results concluded that Samsung Galaxy, IPhone and Nokia were the
most common smartphone models owned by Syrian refugees. More importantly, the
research analysis of the social informatics used found that Syrian refugees own more
than a single SIM card for one or more carriers. One of the potential reasons
explaining the multiple SIM cards phenomenon is fear of governmental or organi-
sational denial of services or prosecution for having sensitive information stored on
one SIM card, as authors argued (Maitland and Xu, 2015).
2.3. Uses and grati¯cations of social media use

In his study of Facebook uses and grati¯cations by Syrian refugees, Ramadan tested
the empirical ¯t of the proposed model, in ¯gure, using an electronic Facebook based
survey of 964 Syrian refugee users (Ramadan, 2017). Based on a structural equation
modelling approach, the researcher found support to their hypothesised path indi-
cating a positive signi¯cant relationship between perceived usefulness of Facebook
and social relations seeking behaviour. Furthermore, Social relations seeking
behaviour exhibited a strong positive relationship to news sharing, collaboration
and communication practices with other Syrians. All in all, Facebook indorsed
higher levels of social capital in host countries and the homeland among Syrians
(Ramadan, 2017).
Studies of social media use among the YSRs between 15 and 25 years old,
have consistently found that such a vulnerable population use Facebook, WhatsApp,
YouTube and other networking sites to reconcile cultural di®erences between the
destination in Europe or North America, for instance, and their sentimentalised
homeland, Syria. To that e®ect, another study contributed that \social media serve
as a `contact zone' that enables cultural sharing and learning, a mechanism for
cultural and linguistic `translation,' and a `borderland' that may help bridge cultural
di®erences and build connections while also negotiating a sense of belonging."
(Veronis et al., 2018).
Syrian refugees have reported many needs and grati¯cations through the use of
social media platforms. Respondents to the Veronis et al. study, for instance, report
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that once they had decided on launching their asylum journey, they engaged in
conducting heavy search aiming to secure a safe haven for them in Europe or else-
where. To them, mobile phones and their social media applications served the
purpose of securing a safe escape to a virtual home they built carefully by means of
their networks. By doing so, they actively reached out to the tool that granted them
the desired place of connection securing them access to their multicontinental net-
work of Syrian refugees and beloved abroad. Who unlike their current precarious
realities, resided in a real physical world of safety, far away from \here". In such an
instance, the Syrian refugees have engaged with their devices from the position of
technological appropriation; using it in a novel ways alien to the service providers
even. Another more concrete example pertains to their purchase of multiple SIM
cards, Syrian, Jordanian or Lebanese, and acquiring the habit of changing them
throughout the day depending on who they desired to contact at that moment, for
any purpose that is. Taking also into account the reliability of the coverage and its
availability (Ramadan, 2017).

Similar to this, the Syrian refugees also noted the heavy use of Facebook and
WhatsApp to seek speci¯c information about their home villages and towns. They
utilised those readily available devices and networking sites to gather credible in-
formation regarding service provisions by the United Nations and other NGOs
serving the refugee communities. They also reported verifying precarious informa-
tion they had received, such as heavy shelling of their towns or ¯erce battling
through social media conversations with relatives and friends. To conclude, Syrian
refugees have used social media to create an alternative narrative to their realities of
multiple deprivation, of misery, of death, of violence, of sorrow, grief and a loss of
hope. Furthermore, they reported high rates of posting positive images about their
lives in the camps and how they look forward to a better future, only virtually this
time. While in Europe, as previously maintained, they used social media to ¯nd more
information about potential employment, housing, healthcare coverage and educa-
tion as some countries allowed them to pursue full-time work or education while
waiting for their court decisions.
2.4. Social media role in building social capital

Syrian refugees' use of smartphones, social media platforms and SIM cards have
strengthened their social capital. Family members share phones, SIM cards and
accounts to save additional costs associated with purchasing more devices. In a study
with 18 semi-structured interviews with Syrian and non-Syrian refugees in the
Netherland, Alencar concluded \that social media networking sites were particularly
relevant for refugee participants to acquire language and cultural competences, as
well as to build both bonding and bridging social capital." (Alencar, 2018).
Furthermore, community members share resources such as devices, accounts and
social media groups to access vital information about asylum seeking and potential
surveillance by the Syrian regime (Maitland and Xu, 2015). Hence, Syrian families'
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sense of community belonging has increased in the camps due to heightened feelings
of collective trauma. This has increased sharing basic resources like phones and
belongings, as explained by Wall et al., saying: \In some cases, phones were used by
several members of a family while refugees who didn't own a phone said that they
could borrow one from a family member or friends if they needed to make a call."
(Wall et al., 2017). Moreover, while documenting the journeys of Syrian refugees
across Europe in 2015/16, Gillespie et al. concluded that \smartphones. . . are bought
and sold, exchanged and bartered, fought over and gifted, personalized and loved.
They may be co-used by entire families or social groups traveling together."
(Gillespie et al., 2018).
2.5. Gender as a determinant of social media use among

Syrian refugees
The literature on Syrian refugees and social media has noted the importance of
gender in determining the frequency, type and intensity of smartphone and social
media use. Analysis from focus groups have indicated that in the context of living in
the largest refugee camp in Jordan, young Syrian females there had little access to
such devices and mediums for communications due to its high indirect cost especially
given little resources, among others (Wall et al., 2017). Hence, the patriarchy of the
Syrian community may have been reinforced at the level of ICT utilisation, as young
unmarried females living in the Zaatari camp, were indirectly restricted from a
number of media adoptive behaviours including having no personal smartphone
device or social media accounts.
In addition to their feeling of insecurity when it comes to picture sharing without
permission by agency representatives and journalists, female refugees also felt
restrictions to their mobility inside the camp as they felt uncomfortable navigating
through the tents unattended (Wall et al., 2017). However, it must be noted here
that other studies have documented numerous examples of Syrian females lacking
access and ability to use Facebook, YouTube or WhatsApp in the same ways their
male siblings did. However, overall, one can conclude that discrepancies may be
subject to cultural and religious beliefs where females are protected from potential
exploitation by other males (Ramadan, 2017).
2.6. Challenges in social media use

Syrian refugees have highlighted several challenges concerning social media use.
Migrants do not trust most of the content on asylum or the consequences of such a
risky decision. Therefore, they exercise a thorough validity check on the source of the
information and the trustworthiness levels of the source and information shared.
Naturally, they assessed trusted information originating from close personal and
social ties compared to advertisements or governmental sources. One area of little
investigation though, pertains to the carefully deliberated use of a smartphone by
the Syrian refugees, given fear of government surveillance (Dekker et al., 2018).
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Moreover, refugees experience accessibility issues to the internet due to limited

network capacity of the mobile infrastructure, coupled with their excessive depen-
dence on their smartphone data, which also contributes to its slowness. Nevertheless,
Syrian refugees were able once again to develop an agile sense of resilience and
innovative thinking, when dealing with networks' congestions and lack of robust
information and communications infrastructure in their host countries (Maitland
and Xu, 2015). Similar research added that access to mobiles in refugee camps is
relatively easy compared to the hurdles of having access to a reliable network. Such
presented a prime challenge to the Syrian refugees living in Jordan, who expressed
preferring to use their host countries' network provider, like Orange and Zein in
Jordan, as an alternative to SyriaTel, owned by Asad's cousin, Rami Makhluf.
Another recurring theme in Syrian refugees' utilisation of smartphones was
brie°y aforementioned at the beginning. It pertains to the emergence of illicit
parties looking to exploit Syrian refugees' hope and desperation. Those are the
smugglers who were criminalized by European governments, for their submitting of

refugee victims to dangerous passages and risky routes throughout the continent
(No author, 2016). Moreover, Syrian refugees have emphasised the e®ect of the
digital infrastructure, availability of WIFI, battery chargers and phone replacements
if necessary, as a moderator for their lifeline. On the route to Europe, the battery
may run out, which may cause a delay in paying the smuggler, a scheduled phone call
with family or government o±cer. Another emerging challenge for Syrian refugees
has been the lack of permanent address in many cases precluding them from
obtaining an appropriate registry for their mobiles by carriers or shopkeepers
(Maitland and Xu, 2015).
3. Research Design
This analysis employs a quantitative research design comprised of semi-structured
focus groups and in-depth interviews with YSRs where a questionnaire instrument is
completed by each participant. This decision is informed by theoretical and practical
considerations. First, as the literature review has established, there is limited research
on how YSR use smartphones and social media applications in Lebanon. Second, little
analysis has been devoted to the impact of social media use on YSRs' family relations.
Third, no study tests the proposition that social media use encourages YSRs to exercise
a relative autonomy through the development of social capital.
3.1. Population, sample and sampling design

The population of interest in this study is YSRs living in Lebanon. While dis-
agreements on the meaning of young has ensued throughout the literature, this
paper operationalises this by the age range of 15–25. The distribution of Syrian
refugees in Lebanon is uneven with the Bekaa Valley and Tripoli combined house
more refugees per capita compared to Beirut, the capital of the country, while the
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South region holds less employment opportunities. The sampled subjects for this
study were accessed either through a purposive or snowball sampling technique. 91
subjects have been interviewed by the researcher to collect relevant information to
answer the proposed questions for the present paper.
This paper utilised two sampling designs to recruit willing YSRs to participate in
the research: purposive and snowball. Purposive sampling is most appropriate when
selecting a group of participants that are knowledgeable about the phenomenon, are
experiencing the phenomenon ¯rst-hand and most importantly, are willing to take
part in the research. The semi-structured survey was in this case undertaken by the
author, individually. Identifying young refugee without having access to Syrian
refugees' places of settlements, or without recruiting an agency that interacts with
this population on a daily basis proved di±cult. Therefore, the researcher started by
identifying a number of Syrian neighbours as initially recruited subjects through
personal networks. The author had worked for several years in Beirut establishing a
robust network of individuals that work with international and local relief agencies
that deal with YSRs every day.
Sampling, whether in quantitative or qualitative research, should be informed by
e±ciency and validity. The author unfortunately does not have direct access to all
Syrian refugee communities living across Lebanon, hence, to maximise the e±ciency
and e®ectiveness of interviews, focus groups and use of limited resources, four geo-
graphic areas were selected as such: Beirut, the Bekaa, Tripoli and the South. To
increase the validity of the research, the researcher asked the networks to identify
other YSRs who may or may not own or possess smartphones and social media
accounts. Also, the researcher exercised a multiple visits approach to increase the
validity of the answers to the questionnaire by numerous participants at di®erent
settings. While this was not attainable for all respondents given their geographic
proximity to the researcher's site in Beirut and the Bekaa, the researcher was able to
visit those participants and their families up to three times to ensure a relation of
trust and establish that the registered answers were consistent and that su±cient
probing has been established.
Additionally, the researcher also utilised snowball sampling to identify further
cases to participate in the survey. Once the identi¯ed participants or family of
respondents in the purposive sample were interviewed, they were asked to recom-
mend additional subjects that could be willing to take part in the survey. In many
cases, this led to further identi¯cation of participants in the same community and
geographic areas intended to be visited by the researcher. In few cases, however, such
as that of the South, the researcher lacked any personal contacts to assist in gath-
ering information on potential subjects or snowball sampling, while solicitations
failed with other subjects. In such di±cult scenarios, the researcher attempted to
visit a potential site where areas are known to be hosting a large refugee population
living there. In such cases, the researcher observed the daily life of refugees on the
streets in those areas and surveyed bystanders asking if they are willing to
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participate in the research. This has successfully increased the number of subjects in
the survey for such remote areas like the South.
All in all, the two sampling techniques resulted in the recruitment of 91 subjects
distributed as follows: 36 in Beirut, 19 in the Bekaa, 16 in Tripoli and 20 in the
South. Of those, 27 subjects in Beirut, 9 subjects in the Bekaa, and 4 in Tripoli were
visited three times. Judging from a personal sense of safety, it was a little di±cult for
the researcher to visit the South or Tripoli more than once given the precarious
political situation in such areas, coupled with the researcher's lack of preexisting
social network in those areas. Furthermore, the researcher also found great di±culty
in accessing a su±cient number of female subjects in Tripoli, the South, and the
Bekaa, even despite existing social network in the latter. This is due ¯rst to females'
displayed hesitance in bringing in home a stranger, such like the researcher. Second,
female subjects were always on the move when the researcher approached them for
interviews, they presented the argument of being too busy or having to be some-
where to prepare food, or meet someone. In addition, some of them were accompa-
nied by their kids who were a good alibi for the mother participant to excuse herself
even after the start of the interview, often after around 6–10 questions were asked by
the researcher. Furthermore, the researcher did note some of the perceived fear
among male Syrian refugees she approached but were able most of the times to
convince male subjects that the study and the process is purely for scienti¯c data
collection and will constitute no form of threat to their wellbeing. Moreover, the
researcher approached male refugee potential participants who were at their work, so
they could not move physically anyway, and the researcher of course, respected the
interrupted time when they had to attend to their clients, selling vegetables or
answering some clients' enquiry.
3.2. Data collection

Due to the unavailability of data on YSRs use of social media and the incompati-
bility between current scholarship on Syrian refugees use of smartphones and the
overall uses and grati¯cations theory, a new questionnaire instrument was developed
covering common themes generated by uses and grati¯cations theory for social
media use. The instrument features a number of questions asking YSRs about their
use of social media and smartphones. Those include binary questions, as well as scale
featured items.
3.3. Data analysis

This research utilised descriptive analysis displaying the frequencies of YSRs uses
and grati¯cations of social networking sites. Given that it is exploratory, it does not
test the validating of causal models using Regression-based or Structural Path
modelling techniques. It presents the relationship between demographic factors in-
cluding age and gender and uses and grati¯cations of SNSs. This is achieved through
simple cross-tabulation techniques without the presentation of hypotheses tests like
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the Chi-Square or other non-parametric alternatives. The Statistics Package for the
Social Science (SPSS) program was used to perform the data analyses for the study.
4. Results
Table 1 presents the percent of YSRs who own phones and the source of their
phones. Notice that 38.4% did not report owning their own devices, of which the
majority are young unmarried females of 15–18 years old. Also note that such groups
use smartphones owned by their parents or older siblings. One emerging theme from
this question is that the male household is responsible for purchasing the phone for
the wife or his children. Where 43% of respondents, 70% of those who reported
owning a phone, suggested that their fathers or husbands purchased their smart-
phone. In addition, once a sibling or parent upgrades their phone, the older phone is
given to the younger member of the family.
Table 2 presents the distribution of how YSRs ¯nanced their purchase of their
smartphones. Over 75% of respondents suggested that they bought their devices in
cash. Only few have saved up to purchase their phones and even fewer reported that
they arranged a set of installments for ¯nancing their smartphones. In most
instances, males purchased the phones to their female family members and children
Table 1. Who bought your cellphone?
Frequency Valid percent
Father 18 19.8
Husband 21 23.1
Son 3 3.3
Giveaway after one of parents or elder sibling updated theirs 6 6.6
I share one [with my mother, sister(s), or husband] 3 3.3
Gift 5 5.5
Not applicable 6 38.4
Total 91 100.0
Source: Data gathered by the author for the total number of respondents, processed via SPSS.
Table 2. Did you pay for it by cash or installments?
Cash 69 75.8
Installments 5 5.5
Saved up for it ¯rst, then bought it 6 6.6
No answer 1 1.1
Total 91 100.0
Source: Data gathered by the author for the total number of

respondents, processed via SPSS.
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males between 15 and 18. They reported that they bought their devices from the
earnings provided to them through employment.
Table 3 presents the common uses YSRs reported for their smartphones. It
appears that the communications and entertainment features of a mobile phone are
the two most common grati¯cations YSRs indicated. Other uses such as seeking
employment, educational opportunities or information on di®erent subjects
appeared in lower percentages. Further, YSRs seem to utilise their smartphones to

satisfy more than one needs. They utilise them to do everything from communicating
with others to information sharing. Furthermore, Table 4 presents the uses and
Table 3. Why did you buy it or someone bought it for you?
Communication 36 39.6
Entertainment 15 16.5
Necessity/My everything/I depend on it 7 7.7
Trending device & Peer pressure 3 3.3
Learning skills, Self-improvement, & Entertainment 3 3.3
Educational activities & Entertainment 1 1.1
Work 8 8.8
Means nothing to me 5 5.5
Communication & work 4 4.4
Communication & Entertainment 6 6.6
Total 91 100.0
Source: Data gathered by the author for the total number of respondents, processed
via SPSS.
Table 4. Report of the most important usage of a mobile phone by age-range.
Age range <15–17< <18–21< <22–25< Over 25
Describe the most Communication only 6 9 9 12

important usage Entertainment only 10 1 1 1
of your mobile Total dependence 2 2 2 1
Trending device & Peer 0 2 1 0
pressure
Both Education and 0 1 1 0
Entertainment
Work only 0 0 0 3
Means nothing to me 1 0 2 5
Both Communication & 1 1 3 0
Work
Both Communication & 2 2 3 0
Entertainment
77 1 0 0 0
Source: Data gathered by the author for the respondents older than 15, processed via SPSS.
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grati¯cations broken by age group. This indicates that older YSRs report more usage
satisfying communication needs compared to younger YSRs who reported a higher
satisfaction for the entertainment needs.
Tables 5–7 display YSRs smartphone use for its Gaming, Camera and Music
functions. It appears that older YSRs ð< 22–25 <Þ used to use gaming more often
before then when the author of the present dissertation had met them. It is unclear
whether before meant, back when they were still in Syria, before actually °eeing to
Lebanon. While, the youngest YSRs ð< 15–17 <Þ reported highest frequency of
using their mobiles for gaming compared to other participants. YSRs did not di®er in
their high use for their smartphone as a camera device, and similarly reported high
frequency use for the device as a music entertainment tool that they use in their
leisure time. Finally, GPS usage seems absent from among the entirety of the
respondents from all walks of life.
Table 5. Participants' mobile usage as a Gaming device by age range.
No-Never // Yes Sometimes Inapplicable/No answer

\Used to, but not [mostly due to not
anymore" (substitution) owning a mobile]
Age Range Under 15 1 2 0 3

<15–17< 9 13 1 0
<18–21< 13 5 0 0
<22–25< 14 8 0 0
Over 25 21 1 0 0
Table 6. Participants' mobile usage as a Music device by gender.
No/Never Yes Sometimes Inapplicable/No answer

[mostly due to not owning a mobile]
Gender Male 8 38 2 0
Female 13 21 7 2
Table 7. Participants' mobile usage as a Camera by gender.
No/Never Yes Sometimes Inapplicable/No answer

[mostly due to not owning a mobile]
Gender Male 8 37 3 0
Female 4 35 2 2
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Table 8. Respondents' general use of SNS and social media platforms.
FB WhatsApp YT Instagram Snapchat Twitter Viber Tango Skype Imo Others*
Yes 56 83 62 29 20 2 15 5 1 2 9
No 22 2 22 60 69 86 68 79 86 74 77
Inactive/ 11 1 5 0 0 1 6 5 2 13 1
Long ago
Inapplicable 2 5 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
Total 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91
Note: *Others include: Telegram and Line.
Table 8 presents the distribution of social networking sites used by YSRs in

Lebanon. It appears that most participants utilise WhatsApp for communicating
with others. Next, participants utilise Facebook more than any other site for in-
formation seeking and sharing. While other social media applications like Twitter
are rarely used.
YSRs also reported low use of Instagram and Snapchat. This may be due to the
presence of similar capabilities o®ered by Facebook. They also reported a high rate of
using YouTube, mostly for entertainment and leisure purposes. Voice over Internet
Protocol applications were also rarely used since WhatsApp o®ers an alternative.
Table 9 con¯rms this pattern where YSRs reported higher reliance on WhatsApp
compared to other social networking site available.
Table 10 presents the distribution of countries most mentioned among partici-
pants' intercontinental social network. Germany appears to be on the top of the list
where YSRs have many relatives who relocated to it since 2015. Similar to Lebanon,
Turkey seems to be second on the list due to its geographic neighbouring border to
turmoiled Syria, where the largest total number of Syrian refugees are registered there.
Canada seems to be the second top choice for potential migration since it is third on the
Table 9. Respondents' usage frequency of the one or two-most used SNS platform on their mobile
phones, by age-range.
Age range Under 15 <15–17< <18–21< <22–25< Over 25 Total
What application Facebook (FB) mostly 0 0 0 0 0 0

do you use WhatsApp mostly 0 0 4 11 16 31
most often? YouTube mostly 0 1 0 0 0 1
WhatsApp then FB 0 3 6 2 3 14
WhatsApp then YouTube 0 5 3 6 3 17
FB then YouTube 1 1 0 2 0 4
FB then WhatsApp 0 2 1 0 0 3
YouTube then FB 2 7 4 0 0 13
YouTube then Gaming 1 2 0 0 0 3
Inapplicable 2 2 0 1 0 5
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Table 10. Most mentioned countries

where respondents' social networks exists.
International social network Total
Germany 43
Turkey 32
Canada 24
Holland/Jordan 17
Sweden/Saudi Arabia 15
Switzerland/Poland 9
Source: Data compiled by the author

based on undertaken interviews.
list. Jordan is in the fourth place given that many relatives of my respondents took
refuge there instead of crossing to Lebanon. The Netherlands appears to occupy the
same place on the list as the third most appealing immigration option for Syrians.
Whereas, Saudi Arabia and Sweden are ¯fth on the list for very di®erent reasons. Saudi
Arabia has a large number of Syrian expats working there, while Sweden forms another
attractive immigration destination. Finally, Poland seems to be number six on the list,
most likely due to having many Syrian migrants ending up residing there while en route
to their ¯nal destinations in Europe, when conditioned change while taking the trip.
Whereas, Switzerland occupied the same place given its attractiveness as an immi-
gration destination for the Syrian refugees as well.
5. Discussion
This research con¯rms previous ¯ndings concluding that the YSRs utilise Facebook
and WhatsApp more than any other SNS platforms (Alencar, 2018). Nevertheless, it
contradicts ¯ndings from interviews and focus groups with Syrians who had mi-
grated to Europe. Those participants reported higher usage of LinkedIn and Twitter,
which are barely even known to our respondents. This analysis found YSRs in
Lebanon rarely using anything else other than Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube.
Furthermore, the study con¯rms earlier ¯ndings from other Middle Eastern host
countries like Jordan where Syrian refugees reported high ownership and usage for
smartphones (Maitland and Xu, 2015).
This study con¯rms previous ¯ndings obtained from the extensive empirical
scholarship on the uses and grati¯cations of SNS (Whiting and Williams, 2013).
Whereby, YSRs in Lebanon reported high rates of using their smartphones and SNS
for communication and entertainment purposes. This goes in line with widely cited
studies of uses and grati¯cations theory ¯nding both communication and enter-
tainment as two most common dimensions of a mobile functionality, across varying
groups of users (Quan-Haase and Young, 2010). Conversations with participants
also noted that they utilised SNS and smartphones for information seeking, sharing
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and expression. Such grati¯cations were also reported by major studies of the theory
con¯rming that such uses are uniform among mobile users, whether Western or
Eastern. Hence, the fact that YSRs are under immense pressure faced by
experiencing harsh living conditions does not change their patterns of uses and
grati¯cations, while people living a normal life, are as attached and as addicted to
their smartphones as refugees, except for all di®erent purposes. It seems then, that
the developers of those platforms, have found a way to hook users to their devices
and applications, and give them exactly what they need, at their particular stage in
life, despite the peculiarity and diversity of each of its users' lives.
This research con¯rms the utility of smartphones and SNSs for YSRs in Lebanon.
It documents how YSRs use such devices to facilitate their everyday life from seeking
employment, to cheaper available rent, to advancing education, depending users'
uses and grati¯cations paradigm. This ¯nding calls on stakeholders in international
organisations and local governments to devise plans following a carefully meditated
maximised usability outcomes for such phones. By means of example, the following
could be interpreted as an attempt to structurally give access of useful information
to users who would rather not employ of such features using their smartphones, due
to societal and educational limitations, especially among the young refugee popu-
lation who due to the multiple challenges they face, self-investment is far from their
priorities.
Hence, based on the above, the researcher here proposes the following approach to
the grati¯cation of entertainment on the one hand, to be employed in favour of
highlighting the importance of education on the other. What we attempt to present
here, is that given a uses and grati¯cations approach to a youth's mobile use, gov-
ernments and humanitarian agencies could employ the most visited media outlets by
the young population — as an exemplary target — to infuse educational contents,
for instance. Such educational virtual products are usually restricted to educational
portals that are only visited by speci¯cally the educated elites, as shown in our data,
whilst the vast majority of mobile users would stick to its most entertaining plat-
forms. In this case, if implemented properly, young-users' access to their ¯rst-choice
providers of entertainment services, like YouTube, via smartphones, would incor-
porate educative content materials that would also serve in their increased knowl-
edge, built capacity, formed skills, improved human capital and overall enhanced
labour force, among others.
Many YSRs in Lebanon do not enrol in schools due to the prohibitive costs
associated with schooling, even though it is of free tuition fees but it still costs for the
students' family to allocate limited resources to make the commute to school, when it
is not convenient to both parents together to secure all that. As rather mainstream
proposition, international organisations can partner with education providers to
certify curricula that could be taken at local services centres, proctored properly
through smartphones. This would mitigate the educational tragedy facing such a
vulnerable population as the YSRs.
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M. Ahmad
This research also con¯rms previous ¯ndings on SNS uses and grati¯cations by
YSRs. YSRs in Lebanon seek information on migration and potential destinations in
Europe and North America. Germany and Canada were found to be the two top
choices for YSRs in Lebanon for many reasons including the high percentage of
Syrians accepted by the two nations and the fact that both nations house relatives
and a social network for Syrians to facilitate the migration and assimilation processes
within the host countries. This dimension of uses and grati¯cations represent the
generic information seeking and sharing theme common in studies of uses and
grati¯cations of SNSs among varying groups.
YSRs in Lebanon were also found to utilise SNSs to develop and strengthen social
capital. They reported uses and grati¯cations in line with maintaining their personal
networks, building new networks, and reviving weak ones. This network they
gathered, would assist them in identifying potential destinations for settlement,
seeking information, employment and educated advice on virtual platform options
they have access to through SNS groups. Such uses resemble other ¯ndings from
previous research where users engaged in particular practices attempting to con-
struct and maintain social capital.
6. Conclusion
This research explored the uses and grati¯cations of YSRs for smartphones and SNS
in Lebanon. It found that YSRs utilise their smartphones as pipelines for facilitating
their living conditions. They rely on them to communicate with family members at
their homeland and abroad. They utilised them to seek potential immigration des-
tination through building information seeking and sharing behaviours. They also
utilised them for entertainment purposes taking pictures, listening to music and
playing games, among others. One of the most important areas of future research
concerns the development of models for increasing the bene¯ts from using smart-
phones and SNS by YSRs in Lebanon. They can be used to bridge the educational
gap through e-learning.
Further, the research opens new horizons in the theoretical development of uses
and grati¯cations theory where it argues that psychological needs explain much of
YSRs' uses and grati¯cations behaviour rather than habit or self-e±cacy as previous
research proclaim. Moreover, this research highlights the inclusive nature of social
capital as a tool shared by the powerless members of communities as Coleman's
viewed the concept in the late 1980s. And YSRs pattern of use for smartphones and
SNS presented a great opportunity to explore how social capital is constructed and
maintained facilitating economic bene¯ts at the individual and family levels.
This research challenges the overarching conclusion that teens' use of mobile
increases parent-child con°icts, at least not in the context of precarity. During the
interviews with participants, it was intuitively recognised by all family members that
the priority of the mobile use among the young refugees, is to assist their parents
followed by their assisting of themselves. Therefore, parents purchased smartphones
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for their children and encouraged them to utilise it to meet their particular indi-
vidual needs, while communicating of their safety back to their parents when outside
the family unit, and staying in touch with their relatives living in Syria and abroad.
These three uses could summarise the entire adoption patters of mobile use among
the YSRs. One more observation pertains to the numerous instances registered
whereby the YSRs desired to help their mothers in particular, and to act towards
appeasing her grievances whichever way they could. Although other indicators were
noted by the researcher, when it comes to mobile use, that familial orientation was
indicated in YSRs' sharing of their smartphone devices and their gifting the mother
with one. In addition to their noted openness in their siblings' use of their mobiles
and SNS accounts, as if the sense of ownership and privacy crumbles in the pre-
carious context of family displacement. To conclude with, the YSRs displayed spe-
ci¯c use of their smartphones in ways to mitigate the harsh conditions facing the
family in Lebanon, hence their use of social media and SNS did not contribute to
parent-child tensions.
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Alencar, A (2018). Refugee integration and social media: A local and experiential perspective.
Information, Communication & Society, 21(11), 1588–1603. Available at https://www.
researchgate.net/publication/328968895 The smartphone as a lifeline an exploration of
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April 10, 2020 12:47:19pm WSPC/188-JIKM 2040005 ISSN: 0219-6492

Journal of Information & Knowledge Management

A Data Analysis Investigation of Smart Phone

and Social Media Use by Syrian Refugees

Published 14 April 2020

social capital in their communities.

To contribute to the research on vulnerable populations' use of their mobile

2.2. Social media platforms of choice

Whereas, Dekker et al. suggested in his analysis of 54 in-depth interviews with

2.3. Uses and grati¯cations of social media use

availability (Ramadan, 2017).

2.4. Social media role in building social capital

2.5. Gender as a determinant of social media use among

2.6. Challenges in social media use

Moreover, refugees experience accessibility issues to the internet due to limited

smugglers who were criminalized by European governments, for their submitting of

3.1. Population, sample and sampling design

3.2. Data collection

3.3. Data analysis

Table 1. Who bought your cellphone?

Frequency Valid percent

Table 2. Did you pay for it by cash or installments?

Frequency Valid percent

Source: Data gathered by the author for the total number of

appeared in lower percentages. Further, YSRs seem to utilise their smartphones to

Table 3. Why did you buy it or someone bought it for you?

Frequency Valid percent

Table 4. Report of the most important usage of a mobile phone by age-range.

Age range <15–17< <18–21< <22–25< Over 25

Describe the most Communication only 6 9 9 12

Table 5. Participants' mobile usage as a Gaming device by age range.

No-Never // Yes Sometimes Inapplicable/No answer

Age Range Under 15 1 2 0 3

Table 6. Participants' mobile usage as a Music device by gender.

No/Never Yes Sometimes Inapplicable/No answer

Table 7. Participants' mobile usage as a Camera by gender.

No/Never Yes Sometimes Inapplicable/No answer

Table 8. Respondents' general use of SNS and social media platforms.

FB WhatsApp YT Instagram Snapchat Twitter Viber Tango Skype Imo Others*

Note: *Others include: Telegram and Line.

Table 8 presents the distribution of social networking sites used by YSRs in

Age range Under 15 <15–17< <18–21< <22–25< Over 25 Total

What application Facebook (FB) mostly 0 0 0 0 0 0

Table 10. Most mentioned countries

International social network Total

Source: Data compiled by the author

New Media & Society, 19(2), 240–254. Available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/

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