Motives for people with visual impairment to use the social media site "Facebook" and achieved gratifications Field Study

الملخص

This research aims to study the motives for people with visual impairment to use the social media site "Facebook" and achieved gratifications. Its importance lies in the significant impact of social media, particularly Facebook, and the importance of visually impaired persons and their use of Facebook in light of the challenges and obstacles they  face.

This research falls within the descriptive research. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, the survey method was used. The  questionnaire tool has been applied to an available sample of 76 individuals from the study community of all visually impaired people using Facebook from all Arab countries, depending on the researcher's ability to access this sample, which is difficult to access.

One of the most important findings of this research is that 73.7% of the sample study are completely blind, and 64.5% are using an NVDA screen reader. The results show that almost half of the sample individuals use Facebook (always), which is especially high given the difficulties faced by those with full visual impairment.

Also, one of the most important motive of the use of Facebook by persons with visual impairment are: (Creating new social relationships, communicating with parents and friends, familiarity with local, Arab and international news, finding topics that others have discussed, and working through Facebook my free time), all of that were highly motivated, while the most important gratifications are: (Help me familiarize myself with local, Arab and international news, know others about my interests, know me about the characteristics of the society in which I live, help me create new social relationships, help me find topics of conversation with others, help me fill my leisure time), all of that were of high satisfaction.

But the majority of respondents see that they have not achieved much through their use of Facebook, and one of the most important negative effects of their use of Facebook is its use in spreading rumors among people, followed by social isolation resulting from using Facebook away from mixing with others face to face.