Less effortful thinking leads to more social networking? The associations between the use of social network sites and personality traits

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Abstract

Social network sites (SNS) have become an important social milieu that enables interpersonal communication by allowing users to share and create information. This study explored the associations between SNS use and personality traits, i.e., need for cognition (NFC) and information and communication technology (ICT) innovativeness. The findings showed that the SNS use had a negative association with NFC and a positive association with ICT innovativeness. Specifically, people who were more likely to engage in effortful thinking used SNS less often, and those who were high in ICT innovativeness used SNS more often. Meanwhile, those who spent more time on SNS were more likely to be multitaskers. Additionally, those who spent more time on SNS also spent more Internet time in general, more online time for study/work and more time in surfing the Web with no specific purpose. This study, which could be a first look at the link between social networking and our thinking, provides evidence for the associations between social media use and personality traits.

Introduction

The advent of social network sites (SNS) is rapidly changing human interaction. Millions of people worldwide are living much of their lives on SNS, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. In 2010, global Internet users spent more than one-fifth of online time on social network sites or blogs (Bilton, 2010). Facebook, the most popular SNS, logged its 500 millionth user in June 2010, amassing 100 million new members since February alone (Fletcher, 2010). The trend exemplifies that the Internet, “by its very nature, is powered by human interaction” (Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010, p. 2). Meanwhile, social networking is rewiring “our social DNA, making us more accustomed to openness” (Fletcher, 2010, p. 33). Quite possibly, SNS use is also affected by the tendency of engaging in elaborative thinking.

Various aspects of social networking have been studied, including self-disclosure (Nosko, Wood, & Molema, 2010), online friendship (Henderson & Gilding, 2004), and online dating (Rosen, Cheever, Cummings, & Felt, 2008). Other studies investigated why people use SNS, how they present themselves on these sites and how SNS use affects social relationships (Donath and Boyd, 2004, Ellison et al., 2007, Liu, 2007, Papacharissi, 2009, Valkenburg et al., 2006).

Despite a growing body of SNS scholarship, the research regarding cognitive and behavioral factors that influence SNS use is still at its early stage. Could one’s tendency to engage in effortful thinking have any association with SNS use? Effortful thinking, which is usually measured by the NFC scale (Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984), refers to one’s propensity to engage in and enjoy cognitively demanding tasks. Previous research also suggests that innovativeness exists among people around the world – a tendency of being open to new experiences and seeking novelty (Agarwal and Prasad, 1998, Fiske, 1971). Does one’s innovativeness influence SNS use? As multitasking has become part of the media routine in the lives of Internet users (Vega, McCracken, Nass, & Labs, 2008), is there any association between SNS use and multitasking? This research explored these questions by assessing the relations between SNS use and personality traits, i.e., NFC and information and communication technology (ICT) innovativeness. For a better understanding of SNS use, the present study also investigated the associations between SNS use and media multitasking as well as some SNS-related behavioral factors, such as total Internet time and online time for work/study.

Section snippets

Research of SNS use

Social network sites have become an important social milieu that enables interpersonal communication by allowing users to share and create information. People use SNS as a means for self-presentation and for building and maintaining contact with others (Donath and Boyd, 2004, Ellison et al., 2007). Social network sites are defined as web-based services allowing individuals to “(1) construct a public or semipublic profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom

Method

Data were collected from 436 students at a large US university in 2010. Students were recruited through a communication course open to the university. Among the participants, the average age was 20 (SD = 3.81) with 318 females (72.9%) and 118 males (27.1%). Half of them were freshmen (50.2%), followed by juniors (26.6%), sophomores (16.7%) and seniors (6.4%). Most of them (79.8%) reported their race was non-Hispanic Whites, followed by Black/African Americans (7.6%), Asian Americans (6.4%),

Findings and analysis

The data showed that most participants (72.2%) reported three or fewer hours of SNS use on a typical day, while more than a quarter (27.8%) reported 3.1 or more hours of SNS use. But none reported no time spent in using SNS. Comparatively, most of them (84.4%) spent five or few hours on the Internet on a typical day, and about one in seven (15.6%) spent 5.1 or more hours online. Many (73.9%) spent three or fewer hours online for study/work, and the rest (26.1%) used over 3 h for the same

Discussion

This study aims to investigate the associations between SNS use and personality traits, i.e., NFC and ICT innovativeness. As media multitasking is increasingly becoming part of the media routine in the lives of Internet users, the variable of media multitasking was incorporated into the analysis of SNS use, which, to our knowledge, is the first study that did this. For a better understanding of social networking, this research also investigated other online activities that may predict the time

Conclusion

People’s social lives are experiencing a major change that never happened before because of the emerging social networks formed in cyberspace via using SNS. Internet users are sharing and receiving a tremendous amount of information through SNS, where new or updated content is shared or delivered in real time. This research shows that SNS use was even more pervasive among US college students than just 1 or 2 years previously (e.g., Jones, Johnson-Yale, Millermaier, & Perez, 2009). The results of

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