The study findings suggested that personality traits in particular -- neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness -- were related to social network addiction.
"There has been plenty of research on how the interaction of certain personality traits affects addiction to things like alcohol and drugs," said co-author Isaac Vaghefi, Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Binghamton University-State University of New York.
For the study, presented at the 51st Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science, researchers collected self-reported data from nearly 300 college-aged students.
The researchers found that these three personality traits -- neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness -- are part of the five-factor personality model, a well-established framework used to theoretically understand the human personality.
They also found that the two other traits in the model -- extraversion and openness to experience -- did not play much of a role in the likelihood of developing a social network addiction.
According to the researchers, neuroticism -- the extent to which people experience negative emotions such as stress and anxiety -- seemed to increase the likelihood of developing an addiction to social network sites.
On the other hand, higher amounts of conscientiousness -- having impulse control and the drive to achieve specific goals -- seemed to decrease the likelihood of developing a social network addiction.
But when tested together, they found that neuroticism seemed to moderate the effect of conscientiousness as it relates to social network addiction.
Agreeableness -- the degree to which someone is friendly, empathetic and helpful -- alone didn't have a significant effect on social network addiction until it is combined with conscientiousness, the researchers noted.
(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
