Abstract: Despite people spending nearly 10% of each day on social media platforms, many also now appear to be anxious to limit the intrusion of social media into their everyday lives. Given the known link between mental anguish and trait neuroticism, understanding how personality relates to social media usage has become an important area of study in recent years. As a result, there is an abundance of articles exploring neuroticism and social media across a variety of contexts. This article synthesizes and reviews the existing work, based on a systematic search that identified 159 studies. Our findings highlight that this current research is highly contradictory, for example people with high trait neuroticism report excessive use despite appearing to use social media infrequently. We discuss the key trends across existing studies to date, and we consider the apparent difficulties experienced by people with high trait neuroticism in exploiting the full benefits of ‘social’ media, discussing the importance of considerations for both designers and users of social media platforms.
Keywords: NeuroticismPersonalityBig FiveSocial media
4. Discussion
4.1. Major findings and implications
Our review highlights a number of key trends across the vast amount of research attempting to understand how neuroticism relates to social media. First, there is no significant evidence that people with high trait neuroticism access social media particularly frequently or for long periods of time. Likewise, research has failed to find a relationship between status update frequency and neuroticism. There is also no consistently reported link between reacting to the content of others through commenting or liking and neuroticism. These findings contrast with the perceptions of their own usage.
Our findings also highlight numerous contradictions within the current research. For instance, although there appears to be a clear link between neuroticism and excessive usage of social media, often identified through self-report measures (such as Hawi and Samaha, 2019), this isn't necessarily reflected in duration or frequency of use findings. Some researchers have raised concerns about self-report measures as a valid and reliable means of determining technology addiction (Coyne et al., 2020; Ellis, 2019). Ellis (2019) also hypothesized a potentially causal correlation between ‘anxiety’ and self-reported addiction. A logical conclusion to be therefore drawn from these apparently conflicting findings (excessive yet infrequent use) is that people with high trait neuroticism worry about their usage more than their actual usage warrants, reflecting the anxiety facet associated with trait neuroticism (Tackett & Lahey, 2017). In turn, their anxiety to reduce perceived ‘excessive’ use could lead to lower usage in terms of time (e.g Kuo and Tang, 2014) and/or more ‘passive’ use. Ironically though, even passive use has previously been found to reduce well-being (Verduyn et al., 2015). The concern among people with high trait neuroticism about their social media use, may actually lead to a behaviour that is further contributing to their anxiety.
In respect of the initial goal to understand how personality traits relate to the apparent harmful effects of social media (Waterson, 2019), we find a wealth of evidence to support a link between self-report measures of excessive use and neuroticism as discussed above. Therefore, given that personality traits relate to reports of problematic use, the evidence suggests that responsivity to reduction efforts may also correspond with traits. Modern ‘microtargeting’ methods (Barbu, 2014) for example, especially in this social media environment, provide the potential to tailor specific intervention messages to specific personality traits (Matz et al., 2017).
Another prominent trend is the apparent motivation of those with high trait neuroticism to use social media to socially interact (such as Eşkisu, Hoşoğlu and Rasmussen, 2017). Again, the research we identify indicates that people with high trait neuroticism have a comparatively small online social network (such as Noë, Whitaker and Allen, 2018), appearing at odds with this socialising motivation. Yet, one explanation requiring further research may be a difference in perception regarding the number of friends/contacts required to ‘socialise’. Are those with high trait neuroticism content with a smaller network? Given that trait neuroticism is generally associated with feelings of dissatisfaction towards a social group (such as Dehle & Landers, 2005), people with high trait neuroticism do not seem to particularly value networks or strive to achieve a large online social network. Another explanation could be their usage of social media in terms of content creation and reaction. The design of social media platforms/algorithms requires users to be ‘social’ and to interact through creating and sharing content. Our findings suggest that those with high trait neuroticism generally do not provide significantly high quantities of status updates (such as Cheevasuntorn et al., 2018) or react to others' content through ‘likes’ or ‘comments’ (such as Lee, Ahn and Kim, 2014). Therefore, it is unsurprising that this ‘passive’ use (Ryan and Xenos, 2011) does not attract a large following or friendship base. Furthermore, the valence of the content that is shared by people with high trait neuroticism may well play a part in their experience of social media (and vice-versa – through the virtuous circle discussed below). Previous research indicates that positive content is more attractive to online audiences (Berger & Milkman, 2012), yet the overwhelming evidence is that people with high trait neuroticism share negative valence content (such as Shen, Brdiczka and Liu, 2015). Infrequent posting of ‘positive’ content that might otherwise attract peers is therefore a third potential causal explanation of the small network size.
In some ways, there appears to be an injurious circle or self-fulfilling prophecy, with potential dissatisfaction in a network (such as Dehle & Landers, 2005) leading to a negative experience which is reflected in negative sentiment and emotion (such as Shen, Brdiczka and Liu, 2015), again limiting the extent to which those with high trait neuroticism socialise on social media. A similar pattern may be occurring with the concern for self-presentation leading to extreme caution or anxiety about the posts created and therefore a smaller quantity of posts. It seems likely that this low level of interaction may lead to a smaller network size, which may intensify the concern for self-presentation.
Ultimately, if individuals with high trait neuroticism struggle to present themselves or interact with others properly on social media, they can be left craving social interaction (such as Eşkisu, Hoşoğlu and Rasmussen, 2017) and seeking favourable self-presentation (such as Seidman, 2013), yet limited in their success with either due to facets within their personality. People with high trait neuroticism may be unable to consistently present a positive online persona that would otherwise enable them to socialise successfully. As research on self-disclosure shows, there is perhaps no ‘filter’ (or not enough of a filter) on revealing facts about themselves (such as Peluchette et al., 2015) or presenting their true (i.e. negative) feelings. Therefore, as also demonstrated offline (Lincoln et al., 2003; Russell et al., 1997; Shurgot & Knight, 2005), those with high trait neuroticism do not enjoy interactions with others and are left unsatisfied with their social support network (De Jong et al., 1999; Dehle & Landers, 2005; Suurmeijer et al., 2005; Tong et al., 2004).
In sum, these findings cast considerable doubt on the ability of users with high trait neuroticism to exploit the full benefits of ‘social’ media. This is important given the increasing reliance (or assumed reliance) on social media to disseminate information and gather viewpoints. Thus, developers of social media platforms, businesses and organisations using social media should consider these aspects when designing social media spaces that are inclusive to all types of people.
4.2. Limitations and future directions
This research is not intended to offer quantifiable means of assessing the strength of effect sizes, and instead explores key trends and nuances across these studies. There is therefore an opportunity for future research to present meta-analyses of these trends. This would also explore in greater depth, for example, the differences in outcome when different data collection techniques are employed. Greater statistical analysis might also explore the effect size when traits combine.
In addition, further studies could shed further light on the apparent inconsistency between measures of compulsive, excessive or even addictive use, yet relatively low frequency of use. For example, data could be collected for a single sample on both frequency and some measure of self-reported problematic use, to further investigate this possible difference between perception and reality. Furthermore, a related area for further research is why those with high trait neuroticism self-report ‘problematic’ social media use. Are all participants accurate or does neuroticism affect self-perception? For instance, Davidson and Ellis (2019) have previously hypothesized a causal link to anxiety, a particular facet of the neuroticism trait.
Another important topic is the finding that people with high trait neuroticism appear to have fewer friends/contacts than their counterparts. This appears to contradict motivations for using social media and suggests that they may have a different perception of what it is to be ‘sociable’ online. This is an important topic for research because the nature of ‘social’ media requires users to establish and maintain networks. For example, although all recipients may believe they are participating as required, a social media campaign inviting users to share content is likely to be less effective when targeting people with high trait neuroticism recipients rather than those who are emotionally stable. An important question therefore is whether they realise this difference.
A final, and fundamental, topic for investigation is the relationship between content creation and network size. Our findings demonstrate that people with high trait neuroticism are, on average, less frequent in their posting of status updates i.e. they are ‘passive’ users of social media. In addition, they tend to post content that is negative in valence. Either, or both, variables could offer a causal explanation of the smaller-than-average network size.
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