During today's afternoon session at the Arab Free Press Forum in Beirut, Jad Melki, an assistant professor at the American University, presented some findings on the media habits of 2,500 young people (aged 13-28) in Jordan, Lebanon and the UAE.

The full report is due to be published next month, but in relation to the internet, he summarised the picture thus: Young Arabs are consumers, not producers; English is their main internet language (except for news); entertainment is the dominant purpose of internet use; the web is for free; print is weak but not dead; there is an alarming trust in new media; young Arabs are tech savvy but not media literate.

I would like to have heard more discussion of this - particularly the extent to which it might or might not differ from internet use by young people elsewhere in the world. 

The extensive use of English by young Arabs on the internet is interesting if not surprising (it tallies with a recent report on the preference for English on Facebook). But I wonder why Arabic is more important when it comes to news. Is it because there are now adequate amounts of Arabic content on the internet in the news field whereas in other areas there are not? Or is it because they feel more comfortable getting news from Arab sources (even if in reality many of the reports are just translations from western sources)?

The other interesting finding was that 53% regard information on the internet as "somewhat trustworthy" and 30% regard it as "very trustworthy". For Melki, this reflects a lack of media literacy (something his classes at AUB seek to rectify). But I wonder if the apparent trust in new media might also be relative, reflecting their not unreasonable distrust in the Arab world's old media.