How many Haredim are exposed to Facebook? A survey conducted by Halakha with 'dripping rain''

May 29, 2017   

A recent survey conducted by the Haredi research institute 'Skar Kahala' - and published on the 'Pashkvil' website - examined the intriguing question: How many Haredim are on social media? It is very difficult to estimate the numbers, especially since some of the Haredi profiles on Facebook are fictitious and/or not active at all. A more difficult, and also more interesting, question is: How great is the influence of social networks, primarily Facebook - and also WhatsApp - in the sector? Does information (or a campaign) from Facebook reach only the network's users, or is Facebook's power greater than the number of those directly exposed to it? The study's authors decided to test this using the song "Rain, Rain, Drizzling," which appeared on Facebook around the last Purim, and seemed to have conquered the Haredi sector as well. In a telephone survey conducted by the institute - based on a random sample of 403 respondents, representing the adult Haredi population (over the age of 18) according to the distribution of main streams, gender and area of ​​residence - two questions were asked: Have you heard the song "Rain, Rain, Drizzling"? Those who answered in the affirmative were asked another question: Where did you hear it? The segmentation of the answers provided a snapshot of the winding path that information takes from the network to additional circles. The answers received revealed that only close to 21% of respondents were exposed to the song on Facebook. Less than one percent (2 women, to be exact) heard it on television. However, about half of the sector knew the song: 511% (!) How did it happen? 201% heard the song from friends. 91% heard it via WhatsApp. This is the most powerful media of all, apparently. On the Internet (including YouTube), 6% from the sector were exposed to the song, and another 5% via email. 3% heard the song from children, grandchildren, and even students. A variety of additional sources of information create the 'Other' category, and they include: weddings, loudspeakers in the streets, and a variety of family members. Sometimes family members tend to be included in the 'friends' category, but in our case, family members constitute a very low percentage, relative to friends and even relative to children from the sector. The degree of exposure between men and women is similar, the gap between them is not significant. On the other hand, there is a significant gap in some of the sources of information, for example WhatsApp and friends - where men's exposure is higher.