Social Media Vs. Users’ Wellbeing and the Role of Personal Factors: A Study on Arab and British Samples

This article explores the multifaceted relationship between social media use and individual wellbeing (SM-WB). It focuses on personality traits, locus of control, social media competency, and cultural backgrounds. An online survey was conducted with 281 Arabs (141 females) and 281 British (155 females). Analyses revealed significant differences: Arabs exhibited higher belief in social media's positive impact on wellbeing, consistent across various wellbeing dimensions measured through a customized PERMA scale. Regression analysis identified significant predictors of SM-WB—social media competency, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, and internal locus of control—for both samples, while females reported higher SM-WB than males. Age was a significant predictor exclusively in the British sample, whereas extraversion predicted SM-WB only in the Arab sample. Qualitative findings regarding future social media design to enhance wellbeing revealed several similarities between samples; however, some themes differed in their specifics, underscoring culture’s nuanced impact on social media developmental requirements for improving wellbeing.