The effect of personality traits on over-the-top service use and binge-watching

Abstract

With the freedom to consume content on preferred devices at any time as long as there is an Internet connection, the growing demand for over-the-top (OTT) services is evident. In conjunction with the rise of OTT services, binge-watching has become a prevalent behavior. In this research, we explore whether personality traits including the Big Five and need for cognition wield an effect on OTT use and binge-watching. We used a large, diverse, population representative sample from South Korea to investigate this topic. Results indicated that openness to experience and need for cognition were positively related to OTT use. Openness to experience, emotional stability, conscientiousness, and need for cognition had a negative association with binge-watching. When the sample was split by OTT frequency, the binge-watching effects were obtained exclusively for daily OTT users. For non-daily OTT users, most of the personality traits did not exert an effect on binge-watching. Implications of the current findings as well as limitations and future research are presented.