Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
skip to main content
research-article

Personality traits, interpersonal relationships, online social support, and Facebook addiction

Published: 01 February 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Using 894 college students in Taiwan, we found out that only 1% of the sample was classified as addicts, but 17.8% was on the alert stage.Approximate 80% of the sample used Facebook everyday, and 10% of them spent more than 8h a day.Interpersonal relationships and online social support was found positively related to Facebook addiction.Some personality traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism were negatively associated with Facebook addiction.Online interpersonal relationship and neuroticism were found to be the prominent predictors of Facebook addiction. Because of the prevalence of mobile devices, the overuse of social networking sites has become a global phenomenon. One of the most popular social networking sites, Facebook, has received a considerable attention in recent years, and the excessive use of Facebook has become a major concern in schools. The purpose of this study was to investigate the reasons for Facebook addiction. By surveying 894 college students in Taiwan, we found that although only 1% was classified as addicts, 17.8% were in the alert group. Approximately 80% of the students used Facebook every day, and 10% spent more than 8h a day on Facebook. Interpersonal relationships and online social support were found to be positively associated with Facebook addiction; however, some personality traits, such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, were negatively associated with Facebook addiction. Online interpersonal relationships and neuroticism were found to be prominent predictors of Facebook addiction. Practical implications are provided herein.

References

[1]
C.S. Andreassen, T. Torsheim, Development of a Facebook addiction scale, Psychol. Rep., 110 (2012) 501-517.
[2]
B. Aydm, S.V. San, Internet addiction among adolescents: the role of self-esteem, Procedia - Soc. Behav. Sci., 15 (2011) 3500-3505.
[3]
V.J.E. Buckner, C.M. Castille, The five factor model of personality and employees' excessive use of technology, Comput. Hum. Behav., 28 (2012) 1947-1953.
[4]
Chen, Y.Z., 2002. Personality Traits, Real and Internet Relationships, and Well-being Among Senior High School Students, Master's thesis, National Ping Tung University in Chinese.
[5]
C. Chou, L. Condron, A review of the research on internet addiction, Educ. Psychol. Rev., 17 (2005) 363-388.
[6]
S. Cobb, Social support as a moderator of life stress, Psychosom. Med., 38 (1976) 300-314.
[7]
S.A. Dwight, K.M. Cummings, J.L. Glenar, Comparison of criterion-related validity coefficients for the Mini-Markers and Goldberg's Markers of the Big Five Personality Factors, J. Pers. Assess., 70 (1998) 541-550.
[8]
Z.W. Fang, Relations among problematic internet use, coping, loneliness and online social support: A comparison of male and female undergraduates, Bull. Educational Psychol., 41 (2010) 773-798.
[9]
Internet Addiction: Does it Really Exist? Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal Implications, in: Internet Addiction: Does it Really Exist? Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal Implications, Academic Press, New York, 1998.
[10]
S. Gunuc, A. Dogan, The relationships between Turkish adolescents' Internet addiction, their perceived social support and family activities, Comput. Hum. Behav., 29 (2013) 2197-2207.
[11]
J.S. House, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1981.
[12]
James S. House, Robert L. Kahn, Jane D. McLeod, Social Support and Health, in: Social Support and Health, vol. xvii, Academic Press, San Diego, CA, US, 1985, pp. 83-108.
[13]
D.J. Hughes, M. Rowe, M. Batey, A. Lee, A tale of two sites: Twitter vs. Facebook and the personality predictors of social media usage, Comput. Hum. Behav., 28 (2012) 561-569.
[14]
M. Indian, R. Grieve, When Facebook is easier than face-to-face: social support derived from Facebook in socially anxious individuals, Personality Individ. Differ., 59 (2014) 102-106.
[15]
J. Kandell, Internet addiction on campus: the vulnerability of college students, Cyberpsychol. Behav., 1 (1998) 11-17.
[16]
D.J. Kuss, M.D. Griffiths, Internet addiction in students: prevalence and risk factors, Comput. Hum. Behav., 29 (2013) 959-966.
[17]
Y.-K. Lee, C.-T. Chang, The dark side of smartphone usage: psychological traits, compulsive behavior and technostress, Comput. Hum. Behav., 31 (2014) 373-383.
[18]
J.A. Oldmeadow, S. Quinn, Attachment style, social skills, and Facebook use amongst adults, Comput. Hum. Behav., 29 (2013) 1142-1149.
[19]
E. Pelling, K. White, The theory of planned behavior applied to young people's use of social networking Web sites", CyberPsychol. Behav., 12 (2009) 755-759.
[20]
C. Ross, E.S. Orr, Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use, Comput. Hum. Behav., 25 (2009) 578-586.
[21]
M. Salehan, A. Negahban, Social networking on smartphones: when mobile phones become addictive, Comput. Hum. Behav., 29 (2013) 2632-2639.
[22]
R. Sariyska, M. Reuter, Self-esteem, personality and Internet Addiction: a cross-cultural comparison study, Personality Individ. Differ., 61-62 (2014) 28-33.
[23]
G. Saucier, Mini-markers: A brief version of Goldberg's unipolar Big-Five markers, J. Pers. Assess., 63 (1994) 506-516.
[24]
C.D. Sherbourne, A.L. Stewart, The MOS social support survey, Soc. Sci. Med., 32 (1991) 705-714.
[25]
S.-E. Shin, N.-S. Kim, Comparison of problematic internet and alcohol use and attachment styles among industrial workers in Korea, CyberPsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw., 14 (2011) 665-672.
[26]
W.-K. Tan, C.-Y. Yang, Internet applications use and personality, Telematics Inform., 31 (2014) 27-38.
[27]
Martin Tanis, Oxford University Press, New York, 2007.
[28]
H.F. Tsai, S.H. Cheng, The risk factors of Internet addiction-A survey of university freshmen, Psychiatry Res., 167 (2009) 294-299.
[29]
J.L. Wang, L.A. Jackson, D.J. Zhang, Z.Q. Su, The relationships among the Big Five Personality factors, self-esteem, narcissism, and sensation-seeking to Chinese University students' uses of social networking sites (SNSs), Comput. Hum. Behav., 28 (2012) 2313-2319.
[30]
K.S. Young, Internet addiction: the emergence of a new clinical disorder, Am. Behav. Sci., 48 (2004) 402-415.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Psychopathological symptoms and social networking sites addiction in Poland and GermanyComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2024.108240156:COnline publication date: 9-Jul-2024
  • (2024)What drives addiction on social media sites? The relationships between psychological well-being states, social media addiction, brand addiction and impulse buying on social mediaComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2023.108086153:COnline publication date: 12-Apr-2024
  • (2023)A Social Media Give and TakeInternational Journal of Social Media and Online Communities10.4018/IJSMOC.32410615:1(1-19)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2023
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Telematics and Informatics
Telematics and Informatics  Volume 33, Issue 1
February 2016
246 pages

Publisher

Pergamon Press, Inc.

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 February 2016

Author Tags

  1. Facebook addiction
  2. Online interpersonal relationships
  3. Online social support
  4. Personality traits

Qualifiers

  • Research-article

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)0
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 14 Oct 2024

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Psychopathological symptoms and social networking sites addiction in Poland and GermanyComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2024.108240156:COnline publication date: 9-Jul-2024
  • (2024)What drives addiction on social media sites? The relationships between psychological well-being states, social media addiction, brand addiction and impulse buying on social mediaComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2023.108086153:COnline publication date: 12-Apr-2024
  • (2023)A Social Media Give and TakeInternational Journal of Social Media and Online Communities10.4018/IJSMOC.32410615:1(1-19)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2023
  • (2023)Understanding of Majority Opinion Formation in Online Environments Through Statistical Analysis of News, Documentary, and Comedy YouTube ChannelsSocial Science Computer Review10.1177/0894439321104378041:2(353-369)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2023
  • (2023)Social Relationship Analysis Using State-of-the-art EmbeddingsACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing10.1145/353960822:5(1-21)Online publication date: 8-May-2023
  • (2023)Progress and future directions for research on social media addictionTelematics and Informatics10.1016/j.tele.2023.10196880:COnline publication date: 1-May-2023
  • (2023)99 + matches but a spark ain’t oneTelematics and Informatics10.1016/j.tele.2023.10194978:COnline publication date: 1-Mar-2023
  • (2023)Unraveling the behavioral influence of social media on phishing susceptibilityInformation and Management10.1016/j.im.2023.10385860:7Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
  • (2021)PhubbingSocial Science Computer Review10.1177/089443931984741539:1(56-69)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2021
  • (2021)An Empirical Investigation on the Factors Affecting Smartphone Addiction in Digital Era: Effect of Social Networking Services and Instant Messaging Applications UsageProceedings of the 5th International Conference on Future Networks and Distributed Systems10.1145/3508072.3508169(473-484)Online publication date: 15-Dec-2021
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

Get Access

Login options

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media