Muslims turning to social media to share Ramadan experiences

Prayers at Al Rahim Mosque in Dubai during Ramadan. More are using social media to share inspiration. Jaime Puebla / The National

DUBAI // Muslims are increasingly turning to social media to share their experiences during Ramadan, a regional executive for Twitter has said, allowing insight into how the holy month shapes their lives and allows them to connect with others of their faith.

The “volume of conversation” around Ramadan is increasing every year, with more than 215 million tweets last year, an increase from about 74 million in 2013, Parminder Singh said during the Festival of Media in Dubai on Wednesday.

The volume of online messages spikes around sunrise, near the time of Suhoor and Fajr prayers, with tweets about daily routines, shopping, health, television and sport driving online conversation during Ramadan, said Mr Singh, who is managing director for the Middle East and North Africa, South East Asia and India.

The platform is used in the UAE to post and retweet festive content and greetings for Ramadan, to connect with friends, family and other Muslims from around the world, and to keep track of important daily events such as Iftar, said Mr Singh.

“Any offline stimulus leads to an emotional fulfilment once people go online and talk about it,” he said.

“The same thing is happening with Ramadan. People are undergoing an experience that’s profound, that’s very deep, and some emotional fulfilment is happening online when they tweet about it and they talk about it with their friends.”

The data showed trends on when people were tweeting, and about what subjects.

For example, tweets about sports would taper off immediately after the beginning of Ramadan and remain at low levels until the end of fasting season. While the main tweet topics related to common activities that continue throughout the year, Mr Singh said changes in things like eating habits alter context.

“The themes and what people do on a day-to-day basis don’t change, but the way they do it [does],” he said.

Mr Singh said 42 per cent of users expected their Twitter usage to increase during Ramadan. He said Twitter users in the UAE were also going online to find Ramadan shopping deals.