The Influence of Personality on the Type of Information College Students Share on Social Networking Sites

Social Networking Sites (SNS), now ubiquitous in American life, provide online community platforms for social interaction. Facebook is one of the most popular examples of this phenomenon. Facebook brands itself as a "place for friends," and claims to "give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected" (Facebook, 2009). On Facebook and other social networking sites, college students share a great deal of personal information, but little is known about college students' perceptions and about the following interactions on SNS: what they share, how much they share, and more importantly, what influences them to share and whether these college students are aware of the dangers of sharing personal information. The purpose of this study is to examine certain personality characteristics of college students and how these traits influence the type and amount of data they share via social media. Utilizing the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) or Big Five personality test (Big-Five Domain) with supplementary questions, this study attempts to explain if any of the big-five personality characteristics, such as extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness form a correlation to the types of data college students are sharing when they use social media. This study used the 10-item scale for each of the five personality traits over the 20-item scale. The findings of this study were statistically significant; however, the correlations were weak. The paper concludes that SNS fulfill the social aspect of Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs by allowing individuals to communicate and socialize.