Smart Homes, Family Bonds, and Societal Resilience: A Comparative Analysis of AraBERT, MarBERT, and DistilBERT on Arabic Twitter Data

This study explores the concept of Smart Homes & Families by analyzing 1,174,912 Arabic tweets from Saudi Arabia to understand societal perceptions, challenges, and expectations. Recognizing that homes play a vital role in nurturing relationships, values, morals, and societal cohesion, the research emphasizes that the "smartness" of homes lies not only in technological advancements but also in supporting core family functions and contributing to sustainability. A machine learning tool was developed, integrating data collection, preprocessing, embedding generation, dimensionality reduction, clustering, visualization, and validation. The study conducts a comparative analysis of AraBERT, MarBERT, and DistilBERT (models based on Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, or BERT), identifying AraBERT as the optimal model for Arabic X (formerly Twitter) analysis. Coherence metrics and thematic evaluation were used to assess model performance. Thematic analysis revealed 22 key parameters grouped into three macro-parameters, offering a structured understanding of public discourse. The study provides policy recommendations and outlines future research directions, delivering actionable insights for stakeholders to support family well-being, societal resilience, and sustainable development through smart home technologies.