Investigating personality differences between female and male college students through Facebook

Ying Liu

Introduction

Social media, as internet-based applications, were created for social interactions. Through social network people can establish or keep connections, share information, and express feelings with friends. Emergence of tablet computers and smart phones has led to more wide and frequent usage of social media in modern society. Social media have become an indispensable part of our modern life, especially for young people. Facebook is considered as one of the most popular social media among college students in the United States (U.S.). Approximately 94% undergraduate students were reported to have Facebook accounts with a 150-200 friends list (Ellison et al., 2007). Stern and Taylor (2007) stated 96% out of 364 college students spend 10 to 60 minutes every day on Facebook. Consequently, Facebook provides huge amount of information for social media researches.

Literature review

Previous studies have shown that many differences exist between female and male Facebook users among college students, such as number of Facebook friends, Facebook profile design, time spent on Facebook, frequency of posting pictures and sharing links, and manners of expressing feelings. Facebook is considered as a good tool to explore the personality differences between males and females by analyzing their different activities on Facebook. McCrae (1992) invented a Five-Factor Model (FFM) to describe personality in five aspects: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Neuroticism is a reflection of people’s distress and sensitivity extents. Butt and Phillips (2008) and Wolfradt and Doll (2001) indicated people at high level of neuroticism spent more time on internet communication to alleviate loneliness. In this case, neuroticism difference between males and females can be detected by the frequency of checking Facebook and the time spent on Facebook. Extraversion is a reflection of people’s sociable ability (Ross et al., 2009). Consequently, the number of friends on Facebook accounts and the amount of sharing personal information, such as posting personal, family, or friends’ photos, are indexes to measure the extraversion level. In this study, a survey of 120 students in Texas Tech University will be taken to explore their basic Facebook account information and activities on Facebook. Based on these data, I will focus on analyzing two aspects of personality differences (neuroticism and extraversion) between male and female college students.

Research question

What personality difference can be detected by comparing males and females’ activities on Facebook.

Hypothesis

Females are at a higher level of neuroticism and extraversion than males through their activities on Facebook.

Reference

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Butt, S., & Phillips, J.G. (2008). Personality and self reported mobile phone use. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(2), 346-360.

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168.

McCrae, R.R., & John, O.P. (1992). An introduction to the five-factor model and its applications. Journal of Personality, 60(2), 175-215.

Ross, C., Orr, E.S., Sisic, M., Arseneault, J.M., Simmering, M.G., & Orr. R.R. (2009). Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(2), 578-586.

Stern, L. A., & Taylor, K. (2007). Social networking on Facebook. Journal of the Communication, Speech & Theatre Association of North Dakota, 20(2007), 9-20.

Wolfradt, U., & Doll, J. (2001). Motives of adolescents to use the Internet as a function of personality traits, personal and social factor. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 24(1), 13-28.