Students' Use of Mobile Technologies

Abstract

Mobile technologies are all-pervasive in the current digital generation, and college students rely on their mobile phones to communicate on a daily basis. In the midst of the myriad of applications available to download on the mobile, some tools have become more well-known and more often adopted than others. An example of such a tool is WhatsApp, which gains an increasing, widespread number of users on a daily basis, particularly in the Middle East region. The present study investigated college students' use of WhatsApp as a communication tool, and used Lebanon as a case study. A qualitative research design was implemented to understand the perceptions of college students vis-à-vis WhatsApp, and to investigate the motivational factors behind the popularity of this communication tool. The results revealed four themes: simplicity for discussion and coordination, cost-effectiveness, immediacy and sense of belonging.