The effect of social media use on empathy and welling: a personality perspective in Saudi Arabia
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-11-2020-0461 |
| Published date | 11 September 2021 |
| Date | 11 September 2021 |
| Pages | 406-423 |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,International business |
| Author | Mousa Albashrawi,Yousef Asiri,Muhammad Binsawad,Latifah Alqahtani |
The effect of social media use on empathy
and welling: a personality perspective in
Saudi Arabia
Mousa Albashrawi, Yousef Asiri, Muhammad Binsawad and Latifah Alqahtani
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to explorethe impact of social media use on both empathy and
well-beingthrough using a five-factor model(FFM) of personality in the context ofSaudi Arabia.
Design/methodology/approach –Data were collected from the 13 regions in Saudi Arabia.
Confirmatoryfactor analysis was used to measure the reliability and validityof the study’s constructsand
a structuralequation modeling techniquewas applied to test the study hypotheses.
Findings –With a sample of 450 users, the regression results indicate a less significant relationship
between personalityand social media use, as well as between personality and affectiveempathy, while a
more significant relationship between personality and cognitive empathy. Also, individuals’ well-being
are influenceddirectly by the heavy use of social media.
Research limitations/implications –The cross-sectionaldesign used in this research may not be able
to provide the true essenceof the hypothesized relationships compared to the cause-effectdesign. This
study furthers the understanding of the role of personality on empathy and well-being in social media
among Saudis from one side and provides insights to professionals for better improvement of social
media andso better individuals’ well-beingfrom the other side.
Originality/value –This paper fills an untapped gap in a developing country context by exploring the
relationship between the usage of social media and the two dimensions of empathy, which, in turn,
influencewell-being under the theoreticallens of an FFM personality.
Keywords Saudi Arabia, Social media, Empathy, Personality traits, Well-being
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Social media platforms are mainly used to post informative or sensational content and
exchange personal stories (Refaee and Rieser, 2014). It helps to connect people from
different backgrounds and cultures to share various opinions and views. However, it is
inevitable that some behaviors in social media can affect users negatively through
misconducted practices. Many research studies have reported misbehaviors in social
media such as verbal violence (Patton et al., 2014), hatred and racism (Dubrofsky and
Wood, 2014), cyberbullying (Mouheb et al.,2019) and less empathy with others (Vossen
and Valkenburg, 2016).
The ability to understand what other people are experiencing and accordingly act to that is
defined as an empathetic behavior (Zaki, 2019). Empathy has been seen as a major factor
that has a huge influence on users’ well-being in social media (Dhir et al., 2018). Well-being
is defined as the psychological and physical comfort, happiness and health, which are
results of the mental state (Scott et al., 2020). There are many reasons for why social media
can be a less emphatic environment, which may impact the users’ well-being. For instance,
the lack of face-to-face communication can have an influence on users’ empathywith others
Mousa Albashrawi is based
at Information Systems and
Operations Management,
King Fahd University of
Petroleum and Minerals,
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Yousef Asiri is based at
Najran University, Najran,
Saudi Arabia.
Muhammad Binsawad is
based at King Abdulaziz
University, Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia.
Latifah Alqahtani is based
at Princess Nourah Bint
Abdulrahman University,
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Received 28 November 2020
Revised 25 January 2021
Accepted 26 January 2021
PAGE 406 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jVOL. 16 NO. 2 2022, pp. 406-423, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1558-7894 DOI 10.1108/JABS-11-2020-0461
in social media (Zaki, 2019). In addition, social media lacks contextual representation,
which may lead to being less empathetic, and therefore, affects other users’ well-being
(Patton et al.,2014).
According to Errasti et al. (2017) and Morelli et al. (2017), the impact of empathy on users’
well-being in social media still needs more exploration. To the best of the authors’
knowledge, no research study has explored how empathy drawn from social media affects
users’ well-being in the Arab context especially from a personality perspective. Indeed,
studies about mental health with relation to empathy are scarce in the Middle Eastern
region. As mental health and sentential subjects are very sensitivein the developed world, it
can be considered an even worse and more sensitive topic in developing courtiers
(Clement et al.,2015). This may be the reason why well-being and mental health subjects
are hardly investigated in the Arab context. However, the intensive use of social media
requires getting a panoramic image inside this use. According to Al-Saggaf and Simmons
(2015), social media plays a considerable role in people’s lives and influences their
perceptions, feelings and eventheir expected interactions in a way we cannot gloss over or
ignore. Standing on how social media contributes to Saudis’ empathy and well-being will
provide a panoramic vision and reflects its usage impact. Hence, this research aims to
study the effect of empathy on well-being for Saudi users in social media platforms where
personality traits are involved.
Saudi Arabia with a total population of 33 million is considered now a social media
powerhouse on the global social media charts. According to Global Media Insight (GMI)
(2019), the powerful presencehas come from the fact that Saudi Arabia is one of the largest
marks of smartphones with 43.80 million mobile subscribers and 23 million active social
media users, which forms 68% of the population. Further, Saudi Arabia ranks first among
Arab countries and second worldwide in the use of Snapchat while Twitter and Facebook
are the most dominant used applications in Saudi Arabia by 11 million and 9 million users,
respectively. Reflecting on such heavy use, Saudi Arabia has the highest annual growth
rate of social media users with 32% growth in contrast worldwide average of 13% (Ministry
of Communication and Information Technology, 2020). With such a strong profile in using
social media, Saudi Arabia can be consideredan appropriate research context, and hence,
this has motivated us to raise our question as follows: how Saudi users practice empathy in
social media platforms and how this affects their well-being under the theoretical lens of a
five-factor model (FFM) of personality.
There are several contributions sought from our study. From a theoretical point of view, it
enriches the existing literature through exploring how empathy is practiced in social media
and how this affects users’ well-being in a developing country context by using the FFM of
personality. From a practical point of view, this research provides a closer look into the
types of personality interactions among Saudi users in social media by evaluating empathy
and well-being. This could help to provide healthy social networks for users to engage with
constructive conversation and supportive communication, which lead to solidarity, kindness
and collaboration as social media platforms still currently lack these factors. Overall, by
understanding how users practice empathy and well-being in social media, the existing
literature can be enriched by raising the awareness around empathy, well-being and social
support, as well as to develop a betterdesign of social media platforms by professionals for
enhancing these aspects.
The rest of the paper includes Section 2, whichdiscusses the background of the personality
model in social media, empathy and well-being. In Section 3, we develop the study
research model and hypotheses. In Section 4, we describe the research methods used in
this paper. In Section 5, we analyze the measurement model and test the structural model.
Finally, we explain the results and highlight the study’s implications in Section 6, while we
conclude with limitationsand future work in Section 7.
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