Personality and social media : usage intensity, self-disclosure and motivations

Abstract

As social media gains popularity, research into social media is also expanding. With individual differences in social media usage patterns, extensive research has looked at personality factors such as Big Five, narcissism and self-esteem to provide clarifications to these differences. This paper provides a review of the literature regarding the relationship between personality and social media usage in three broad areas namely, usage intensity (e.g. time spent and frequency of use), self-disclosure (e.g. breadth and depth) and motivations (e.g. social and informational motives). Overall, review of literature seems to suggest that the findings related to personality on social media are unclear as contradictory findings are presented. The paper analyses methodological and research base issues such as sampling characteristics, measures, methods and publication biases, and how these issues may have played a role in the inconclusive findings. Finally, suggestions for future directions are given to improve the literature surrounding this field.