Translate and Validate the Online Social Support in a Sample of Saudi Society

Abstract

The current study aims to translate and validate the online social support scale developed by Nick et al. (2018) in a sample of the Saudi community (n = 632). The study also aims to identify the level of online social support among the study sample, and reveal the differences in the level of online social support according to (gender, nationality, marital status, and the number of hours of use of Internet networks, as well as identify the most used social networking applications. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that all items on the scale have a high loading, as the loadings values of the factors ranged between (0.73-0.86), and the value of (CFI = 0.90), the Alpha Cronbach (= 0.96.) The study revealed a high level of online social support in the informational social support dimension and a medium level in the social companionship support dimension. The results also showed that there were no differences in the level of social support online according to gender, while there were differences according to nationality in favor of non-Saudis, and according to marital status in favor of the unmarried. The results confirmed that the increase in the use hours of the internet leads to an increase in the level of social support, and the results also showed that the most used social media application among a sample of Saudi society are (WhatsApp), followed by (Snapchat) and (YouTube).