Whether social media use differs across different personality types? Insights for managing human resources

Abstract

The present paper explores whether social media usage patterns differ across various personality types. Such an examination is warranted, as social media platforms are growing exponentially and being explored for almost all business functions. The paper is based online survey of working professionals who are pursuing three years master's program in management in India. The questionnaire included Big Five personality scale and eighteen different items to capture the social media usage pattern of the respondents. The findings indicate that extraversion personality traits have positive relationship with time spent on social media, public sharing of information and usage of Facebook, while neuroticism has negative relationship with overall social media use. A significant difference is found between the time spent on social media and frequency of use of social media on mobile phone for different personality categories. The implications of the study for human resource managers in recruitment and training are provided.