Personality Predictors of Social Media Motives and Platform Preference among Myanmar Undergraduates

This study examined how Big Five personality traits predict undergraduate students’ motivations for and preferences between major social media platforms in Myanmar. Grounded in the Big Five framework and Uses and Gratifications theory, 301 students (33.9% male; ages 18-26) completed the IPIP-50 and a validated Uses & Gratifications inventory (passing time, escape, companionship, entertainment, information seeking), along with demographic and usage measures. Independent-samples t-tests found that female students reported higher passing-time motives than males; no gender differences emerged for escape or companionship. Multiple regression analyses indicated that conscientiousness and emotional stability negatively predicted passing-time (R² = .16) and escape motives (R² = .12), whereas extraversion positively predicted companionship and entertainment motives (both models R² ≈ .28). Conscientiousness and openness positively predicted information-seeking motives. Multinomial logistic regression showed that higher emotional stability and openness increased the likelihood of preferring YouTube over TikTok (R² = .18). Collectively, results suggest that stable individual differences constrain or channel students’ social media gratifications and modestly influence platform choice. Findings extend U&G theory by positioning personality as a boundary condition for motivational versus platform-level engagement and have implications for digital-wellbeing interventions and pedagogical design in university settings. Limitations include cross-sectional self-report data and single-site sampling; longitudinal and multi-site replication is recommended.