Identifying commonalities and differences in personality characteristics of Internet and social media addiction profiles: traits, self-esteem, and self-construal

Nazir Hawi and Maya Samaha

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2019, vol. 38, issue 2, 110-119

Abstract: Excessive use of the Internet and social media has been associated with behavioural addiction, which sparked the researchers’ interest in gaining a better understanding of this global phenomenon. The aim of this study was to fill a gap in knowledge by using just one sample to identify similarities and differences in relationships between technology addictions and personality characteristics, especially traits, self-esteem, and self-construal. The sample consisted of 512 undergraduate students. The results showed that Internet addiction and social media addiction shared many more similarities than differences. Agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experiences, emotional stability, self-esteem, the frequency of checking account, and Internet usage were predictors of both Internet addiction and social media addiction. Age, satisfaction with life, and interdependent self-construal did not predict Internet addiction or social media addiction, whereas real self and extraversion predicted Internet addiction only, and gender, posting updates, a number of friends, and independent self-construal predicted social media addiction only. These results provide some basis for an understanding of Internet and social media addiction profiles.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2018.1515984 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:38:y:2019:i:2:p:110-119

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tbit20

DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2018.1515984

Access Statistics for this article

Behaviour and Information Technology is currently edited by Dr Panos P Markopoulos

More articles in Behaviour and Information Technology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().