Personality and Problematic Social Media Use

Abstract

Problematic social media use is a disorder that causes individuals to be preoccupied with excessive use of social media despite its negative impacts on their health and personal lives. It has been associated with some symptoms and signs of substance abuse, including mood changes, salience, withdrawal symptoms, relapse, conflict, and tolerance. According to various studies, there is a correlation between problematic social media use and personality traits hence the need for a comprehensive evaluation of the same considering specific social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. A sample of 643 subjects (mean age = 27.3; SD = 9.02; 80.2% female; 18.5% male) completed the survey whose contents were used to test this study’s hypotheses. The study’s hypotheses included; that neuroticism will be highly correlated with problematic social media use, and Instagram will have the strongest association with negative affect. The study’s findings supported the first hypothesis, but nullified the second, with TikTok having the highest negative affect and being preferred by people with high neuroticism. Although the study did not establish causality, its findings are a foundation for researchers wishing to establish causality in their research and develop interventions to mitigate the negative effects of PSMU.

 Personality and Problematic Social Media Use

Social media has become popular in recent years, with people using it to connect and interact with other people and businesses taking advantage of the wide audience to make people aware of their brands. Although social media has various benefits, it can result in psychological and physical addiction. Similar to substance addiction, it may lead to mood shifts (feeling positive emotions after social media use), tolerance (increased social media use with time), salience (cognitive, behavioral, and emotional social media preoccupation), withdrawal symptoms (the manifestation of unpleasant emotions when social media use stops or is limited), relapse (people with social media addiction reverting to its excessive use after a period of no use), and conflict (social media use leading to problems in interpersonal relationships). Although there is no recognized diagnostic technique for problematic social media usage (PSMU), this study conceptualizes it as a disorder characterized by the compulsion and preoccupation to engage in social media platforms excessively, even when the act has associated negative effects. In addition, PSMU is related to depression and anxiety in young adults and children. For instance, in their meta-analysis, Shannon et al. (2022) discovered moderate to significant relations between increased symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety in the youth and PSMU. Similar to this, a meta-analysis and systematic review by Marino et al. (2018) revealed the negative consequences of problematic Facebook use on the wellness of young adults and teenagers with mental distress as a prominent negative outcome. Due to proliferated social media use, researchers have thus sought to determine how one’s personality predisposes one to PSMU.

The Big 5 personality factors—agreeableness, neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness—are the primary focus of research on the relationship between personality characteristics and problematic social media usage (Yu et al., 2020; Choi & Shin, 2017; Xiao & Mou, 2019; Sindermann et al., 2020; Rajesh & Rangaiah, 2020; Huang, 2022). According to earlier studies, those with higher levels of extraversion and openness tended to use social media positively, whereas those with higher neuroticism tended to use it negatively. However, most studies have only looked at one social media site, Facebook, to pinpoint the relationship between personality characteristics and social media use (Marino et al., 2018; Sindermann et al., 2020; Rajesh & Rangaiah, 2020). Additionally, other studies have only generally covered the association between PSMU and personality traits without attributing the findings to specific social media platforms, leading to a generalization of the findings (Shannon et al., 2022). The purpose of this study is to close this research gap by presenting a detailed correlation between personality characteristics and problematic social media use concerning the various social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube) and the Big 5 personality variables to understand better how personality influences how individuals interact with social media.

The Big 5 Personality Factors

The Big 5 personality factors comprise extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Extraversion is defined by passion and energy and is related to the number of social relationships. Individual adjustment is the defining character trait of neuroticism, characterized by moodiness, worry, anxiety, self-pity, despondency, and fearfulness (Huang, 2022). People open to experience are insightful, artistic, ingenious, curious, and sophisticated, while agreeable people are empathetic and warm; hence, they have a high quality of social interactions (Huang, 2022). Finally, conscientiousness involves having socially acceptable control over one’s impulses; hence these people are reliable, efficient, deliberate, and responsible.

The Current Study

The current study aims to determine if the Big 5 personality traits might forecast problematic social media use by considering their relationships with specific social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube). Deriving from past research, excessive social media use is linked to high levels of neuroticism and leads to adverse health issues such as depression, stress, and anxiety. Thus, this research hypothesizes that neuroticism will be highly correlated with PSMU. Additionally, researchers have found Instagram to have the most adverse mental health effects on young adults (Firestone, 2017; Welch, 2017); hence this study hypothesizes that Instagram will have the strongest association with negative affect.

Method

Participants

The data were pooled from undergraduate students who volunteered to complete a survey about their personality and other outcome measures. There was a plain language statement that informed them that they had the option of contributing their data to continuing research in this sector if they consented to the act. The data was, however, anonymized before its inclusion in the larger dataset, which will be used for further research such as this. Although the sample size for this study was 643, 8 did not complete all measures; hence the study focused on the remaining 635 participants. The participants were between the ages of 19 and 61 (M = 27.30; SD = 9.02). The study participants comprised 515 females, 119 males, and eight whose genders were not specified.

Materials

The Big Five Aspects Scale (BFAS) (DeYoung et al., 2007)

Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness to Experience are the Big 5 qualities that the BFAS, a 100-item self-report survey, measures. It also measures ten aspects, two per factor. A 5-point Likert scale is used to rate responses, with one representing "Strongly disagree" and five representing "Strongly agree."

Adolescent Preoccupation with Screens Scale, modified (Hunter et al., 2017)

This 21-item self-report scale evaluates potential screen fixation in non-clinical contexts across a wide range of screens and screen-based activities. The responses are rated on a five-point Likert scale: one equals "Never," and five equals "Always." The word "parents" has been changed to "family and friends" to make the scale suitable for adult use. In addition, social media has replaced the phrase "screens" as a more specific criterion.

Social Media Usage Items

The social media sites that participants had accessed in the three months prior were evaluated using specific items. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube were among the available platforms. Participants were asked to score their usage time and frequency for each platform they had used.

Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)(Watson et al., 1988)

The PANAS is a 20-item self-report measure that asks respondents to score their moods and sentiments over the previous seven days. Items are rated on a Likert scale of 1 to 5, with one denoting "Very slightly or not at all" and 5 denoting "Extremely."

Procedure

The data analysis comprised analyzing the used materials' psychometric properties and descriptive features. Additionally, the study then examined bivariate correlations by focusing on the correlations between social media use and various aspects of personality. The study used a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.9 to denote an excellent correlation, with the limit for acceptability being 0.7. Finally, the data was analyzed to determine the combination of social media platforms and personality traits that predict problematic social media use. The adjusted multiple correlations assessed the general prediction and provided an unbiased approximation of the subjects' relationships, especially in comparing models containing differing predictor numbers.

Ethics Consent

The research adhered to the general psychology ethical guidelines. In addition, all participants consented to use their data for this study after receiving adequate information on the purpose of the study, how their data will be used, and the associated risks

ResultsThis analysis included 643 participants (N=643) ranging from age 19-61 (M = 27.30; SD = 9.02), with 8 of them having incomplete measures; hence the complete data was from 635 participants. In addition, there were 515 females, 119 males, and eight other participants. Table 1 and Table 2 summarize this sample.

Table 1

Summary of Sample Size and Age

Table 2

Sample Size According to Gender

Descriptive Statistics of The Big 5 Traits and Negative Affect

Table 3 highlights the descriptive data of the Big 5 traits and negative affect. A total of 643 samples were used in the analysis, and agreeableness had the highest mean score of the sample. The other significant traits from the sample in order of magnitude of their mean include; openness(3.72), extraversion (3.47), and neuroticism (2.94). Negative affect had a mean of 2.30 from the analyzed sample.

Table 3

Descriptive Statistics of The Big 5 Traits and Negative Affect

Descriptive Statistics of Duration of Social Media Use and PSMU

Table 4 shows the participants' mean time on social media in minutes (166) and the minutes that involved PSMU (2.56).

Table 4

Duration of Social Media Use and PSMU

Table 5 shows the duration the participants spent on each social media platform under study daily, giving a comprehensive view of the time distribution across the different platforms.

Table 5

Average Daily Platform Use in Minutes

Mean Correlation Between the Big 5 Traits and PSMU

Table 6 displays the weighted mean associations between the Big 5 attributes and PSMU for the social media sites under consideration (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter). From the table, neuroticism has the strongest correlation with the total time that an individual spends on social media (0.211), while agreeableness (-0.09) and extroversion (-0.093) had the weakest correlation with time spent on social media. Openness correlated -0.171, and conscientiousness correlated -0.185 with total time spent on social media. Additionally, neuroticism also has the strongest correlation with PSMU (0.368), while agreeableness (-0.114) and extroversion (-0.122) have the weakest correlation with PSMU. Openness and conscientiousness had a correlation of -0.186 and -0.259 with PSMU. The social media platform with the highest positive correlation to neuroticism was TikTok, followed by YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Finally, TikTok had the highest correlation with negative affect, followed by YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Table 6

Mean Correlation Between the Big 5 Traits and PSMU

Discussion

Researchers have proven the use of problematic social media and personality factors to be significantly correlated. However, although previous research has sought to investigate this relationship, some of the studies were too general, with no attribution of PSMU to any specific social media platform (Shannon et al., 2022). In contrast, others just focused on one social media platform, mostly Facebook (Marino et al., 2018; Sindermann et al., 2020; Rajesh & Rangaiah, 2020). This way, a majority of the existing studies offer no information that specifies the association of personality traits and each of the personalities outlined in the Big 5 model. By thoroughly examining the relationships between the Big 5 personality variables and several social media platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram), the current study aimed to fill a knowledge gap in the relationship between personality traits and PSMU. The findings supported the hypothesis that neuroticism will be highly correlated with PSMU. From the data, it had the highest correlation of 0.368, which was followed by conscientiousness (0.259). The personality traits with the least PSMU were agreeableness and extroversion. These findings indicate that neuroticism is a predictor of PSMU. In general, the data showed that the subjects spent a significant amount of time daily on social media, with neuroticism and conscientiousness having the most significant time while agreeableness and extroversion had the least time spent on social media. People with high neuroticism use social media platforms as unique environments to cope with negative emotions, as they often have trouble regulating them (Abbasi & Drouin, 2019). Their low-quality social relationships and social anxiety also increase their likelihood of social media addiction as they prefer to engage in online communications (Huang, 2022). Contrastingly, people with high conscientiousness can control their impulses and have strong motivations to attain certain goals; hence they have lower risks of problematic social media use (Huang, 2022). Since extraversion and agreeableness had weak correlations with PSMU, they are poor predictors of it. Agreeable and extroverted people are friendly and prefer physical interactions hence their low predisposition to PSMU.The findings nullified the hypothesis that Instagram will have the highest negative affect. Instead, TikTok had the highest negative affect and was the most popular among people with high neuroticism. The application has increased in popularity over the years hence the inconsistency with the findings that claimed Instagram has the highest negative affect (Firestone, 2017; Welch, 2017). The problematic use of TikTok leads to deteriorating memory, and experts have discovered that its algorithm can promote anxiety, depression, and eating disorder content. The platform is also very addictive as short videos on the “for you” page are tailored to an individual's preferences (Meral, 2021). The application also has an unlimited stream of videos that do not exceed 30 seconds, lowering the probability that one will get bored and increasing the probability of spending a significant amount of time on the application (Meral, 2021). Unsurprisingly, YouTube, which bears similarities with TikTok, also has the second highest negative affect. Both platforms are based on streaming videos, with YouTube introducing shorts, a short-video sharing platform hosted on its platform.

LimitationsAlthough this study enriches the literature regarding personality-problematic social media use, it also has limitations. First, the sample was primarily female. Additionally, the study did not consider the gender differences in PSMU; hence future studies could extend this study by focusing on the gender and personality correlations to PSMU and ensuring a more gender-balanced sample.

ConclusionThis study aimed to highlight the comprehensive association between personality traits and PSMU across various social media sites, including (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram). Although social media platforms bear several advantages, they lead to addiction, with people with high neuroticism facing higher risks than people with other personality traits. Additionally, the findings indicated that TikTok had the greatest negative affect and attracted people with high levels of neuroticism. Although further research is needed to establish causality, comprehending these correlations are a significant step toward finding their causes and developing interventions to curb PSMU.

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