The relationship between personality and social media: A study of Irish undergraduate students

Previous research has associated the five dimensions of the Big Five Model (BFM) of personality with social media usage. The current study aims to expand on the existing research by investigating the complex facets of each personality trait as proposed by the BFM, and how they may in turn be applied to social networking behaviours. A questionnaire based, quantitative design was adopted. Participants, who were enrolled in an undergraduate programme, attending the National College of Ireland (n=66) were required to complete an information sheet, providing all relevant demographic details, the Big Five Personality Questionnaire and The Social Networking Questionnaire, taking 15-20 minutes to complete. A total score for each personality trait was calculated for each participant, enabling the investigation of the relationships that exist between the criterion variables- ‘’forms of social media utilised’’, ‘’total number of friends’’, ‘’time spent on SNS’’, ‘’levels of preference for face to face communication’’ and the predictor variables ‘’Openness to new experience’’, ‘’Conscientiousness’’, ‘’Extraversion’’, ‘’Agreeableness’’ and ‘’Neuroticism’’ to occur. Spearman’s rho correlation revealed a weak negative relationship between conscientiousness and time spent on social media, r=-.23, n=57, p=0.02 and neuroticism and time spent on social media, r=-.29, n=61, p= 0.02. Results further revealed a medium, positive, significant relationship between extraversion and total number of friends, r=.304, n=59, p=0.02. Independent samples t-tests indicated non-significant differences in levels of agreeableness and a preference for face to face communication, and a non-significant difference in levels of openness and utilising the most forms of social media. Implications are discussed in relation to the impact these traits have on social media use for the benefit of parents, educators, marketers and advertisers