"On the Internet No One Knows I'm an Introvert": Extroversion, Neuroticism, and Internet Interaction

Abstract

Social communication is one of the most common reasons for using the Internet. This paper examines how the personality characteristics of the user affect the meaning and importance of Internet social interaction in comparison with "real life," face-to-face interactions. Forty subjects all of whom were familiar with using "chat" participated in this study. After a at" session, they were instructed to answer several questionnaires. It was found that introverted and neurotic people locate their "real me" on the Internet, while extroverts and nonneurotic people locate their "real me" through traditional social interaction. The implications of our results for understanding the user-net interaction, the "real-me" location, extroversion, neuroticism, and Internet interaction, and the treatment of social phobics are examined.

Personality and Internet usage: A large-scale representative study of young adults

“…Past studies have shown very conflicting results with Extraversion and online communication (see Table 1). We find that in contrast to Amichai-Hamburger et al (2002), who found that Introverts prefer online communication, Extraverts, who seek stimulation from other people, actually prefer online communication. Orchard and Fullwood (2010) propose that Extraverts may use the Internet for increasing their offline social networks whereas Introverts may use the Internet to escape their offline personas.…”

“…With adolescents, Extraversion was correlated with Internet communication (Wolfradt & Doll, 2001). In contrast, Extroversion was found to be negatively correlated with feeling comfortable communicating online (Amiel & Sargent, 2004) and with using online chat (Anolli et al, 2005), also in contrast to the claim of Amichai-Hamburger et al (2002).…”

“…People scoring high on different personality traits may exhibit unique preferences for online expression. It has been proposed that those who score high on Introversion and Neuroticism can better express their ''true self'' through Internet communication while those who score high on Extraversion find an expression of self more in face-to-face interaction (Amichai-Hamburger et al, 2002). Evidence though has not fully supported this: Extraversion was shown to positively correlate with using the Internet to maintain both remote and face-toface friendships (Tosun & Lajunen, 2010) and was positively related to information exchange, which included email (Swickert et al, 2002).…”

“…Therefore we expect a positive relation of Neuroticism with general Internet activity. In terms of communication, on the one hand, Amichai-Hamburger, Wainapel, and Fox (2002) propose the notion that Neurotics put the ''real me'' on the Internet and thus they would engage in more online interaction. Yet, when communicating online, where social cues are minimal and where the ambiguity could be interpreted in a pessimistic way, we expect Neurotics to be less likely to engage in online communication.…”

Impact of Online Flow Experience on Personality Variables, Subjective Happiness and Satisfaction with Life

“…Individuals" self-consciousness disappears, sense of time becomes distorted, and the resulting state of mind is extremely gratifying when he/she is in a state of flow (Hoffman and Novak, 1996). Introverted people locate their "real me" on the internet, while extroverted people locate their "real me" through traditional social interaction [15].…”