Why Is Twitter Relatively Popular in Lebanon?

There’s a good report by Patrick Galey in the Daily Star on Lebanon’s regional prowess in Twitter. Both Darine and Liliane gave good answers for why this is the case, but there’s one that wasn’t mentioned that I’d like to add.

First, check this paragraph from the article:

Lebanon, with upward of 80,000 active Twitter users, ranked 6th among Arab countries, a high posting considering its small population and slow internet connection.

Here’s what patrick got wrong: Twitter is popular in Lebanon because of its slow internet connection, not despite of it. The Lebanese discovered that it is much faster to load 140 characters of simple text than open a rich facebook page. This is especially true in mobile, where even an edge connection (like the one we have in Lebanon) can load twitter streams relatively quickly.

There’s no mention in the report of Lebanese YouTube usage. If my logic above is correct, something tells me we’re not faring as well in that department..