Egyptian Women's Dependence on Social Networking Sites and Their Relationship to Their Empowerment In light of Sustainable Development Plans

This study focused on examining the Egyptian women's dependence on social networking sites to empower them socially, economically and in the media in light of sustainable development plans. The study applied two theories: The Media Dependence Theory and   Media Richness Theory. It is a descriptive quantitative study where a survey was applied on a purposive sample of 200 respondents – age range between 18- over 50 years- of the Egyptian women who use SNS. The results concluded that the respondents depend on social networking sites in general and Facebook in particular to empower women at the knowledge, cognitive and behavioral levels, due to the availability of criteria for the richness of SNS. The results showed the respondents' confidence in social networking sites. Also, the results indicated that there is a correlation between the respondents’ depending on social networking sites and the availability of criteria for the richness of the SNS in addressing the goals of sustainable development and women’s empowerment. There is also a significant correlation between the interaction of the respondents on social networking sites with the empowerment of women in the shade of sustainable development plans and the availability of criteria for the richness of these means. Finally there are statistically significant differences between the average degrees of the respondents’ dependence on social networking sites in identifying sustainable development plans to empower women according to the age variable.