A Sociolinguistic Perspective of WhatsApp Statuses Used by Jordanians

Abstract

The study aimed to examine the use level of the WhatsApp among Jordanians, and also to identify differences among Jordanians in WhatsApp status uses in light of their gender, age, marital status, and socioeconomic level. The population of the study included all students who are enrolled at the English department of Jadara and Irbid national Universities in Irbid, Jordan. The sample of the study consisted of (262) students whose ages are between 18-40 and were selected randomly. To achieve the aims of the study, a (23) item questionnaire was developed based on previous literature and used for data collection. The results showed that the level of using WhatsApp application among university students was high. The result showed that there are statistically significant differences at (a= 0.05) due to gender in favor of females, due to age in favor of the age group 18-21, and in Socioeconomic level in favor of more than 500. In light of results, the study recommend to work on motivating students for more use of this important application for academic purposes.