There is diversity in ethnicity, economic status (ranging from $103,000 GDP per capita in Qatar to $2,500 GD in Yemen and the Gaza Strip), in age of Internet users, levels of education, and the like (Middle East 2015 Paige 2014). Yet, throughout this part of the world there is great diversity in religion (ranging from Baha’i, Christianity, Judaism, Mandeanism, Shabakism, Unitarian Druze, Yarsan, Yazdånism, Zoroastrianism, and more, to Islam in its many varieties: Middle East 2015). Often scholars write as if the Middle East is a single, homogeneous entity. We followed the same procedure when attempting to unearth the predictions of futurists and forecasters. On occasion, when no studies were available for a given country, we were forced to rely on popular magazine and newspaper articles. Surely more studies exist, but we have been unable to find them. On occasion we wrote to the authors themselves, asking if they had done more work or knew of more work on this topic that had not appeared on our list. When all was said and done, we were able to identify a number of papers that assessed people’s attitudes toward computer match making, it’s prevalence, its unique forms in the Middle East, it’s pros and cons, and the impact that it has had and is expected to have on the Middle East. We also search for the terms “future predictions,” and the like with all the Middle Eastern countries. ![]() We then replaced “social media” with “date and mate matchmaking,” “chat rooms,” “instant messaging,” “speed dating,” and so forth (again paired with names of the individual countries), utilizing the PsycINFO database (American Psychological Association 1967–2010) and MEDLINE (National Library of Medicine 1966–2014) and search engines such as Google, GoogleScholar, Safari, Explorer, Firefox, and Netscape. Our first step was to conduct computer searches of the terms: “social media Middle East” and “social media” paired with the names of all of the individual countries listed in endnote 1. Today’s social media typically offer several ways for members to connect virtually with one another, including both synchronous (e.g., instant messaging, texting, video chat) and asynchronous (e.g., email) modes of communication. Not surprisingly, the use of the Web and social media is especially common among wealthy, young, college educated Middle Easterners. A little more than 50% of the Middle Eastern population can now tune into to the Web. In the 5 years from 2007–2012, it grew from 20 to 77 million, a 294% increase, and it is still growing rapidly (Royal Pingdom 2012). Although in the Middle East the Web is subject to more widespread regional restrictions than in any other area of the world, its popularity is increasing exponentially. By 2012, the number of Internet users worldwide had reached 2.27 billion. Today, throughout the world, Internet access is ubiquitous. ![]() They are media for social interaction (Cohen 2011, p. Social media are the online technologies and practices that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives, and media themselves. But first: what do we encompass in the term “social media”? A second goal is to provide some ideas as to the impact of the burgeoning social media on the world of tomorrow in the Middle East. We suspect that currently most scholars underrate their popularity and ubiquity in this area of the world. One aim of this paper is to point out how popular such sites have become. Let us begin by defining “social media” and discussing their prevalence in the Middle East a.
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