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1RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTERNET ADDICTION AND BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Dr. Anand Kumar Tripathi
Assistant Professor – Psychology, Government Girls Degree College, DLW, Varanasi, UP, India
Abstract- This paper tried to put up the theoretical framework with review of various constructs on Internet addiction and personality. In this paper, 20 research articles have been reviewed on basis of given construct, namely internet addiction, personality and personality type of most of Internet addict students. With the help of current factual knowledge, it is proclaiming that Internet addiction affects various aspects of life of students; personality type can show Internet addiction level and type of personality is directly related to more consumption of Internet. There are 3 sections in this paper: Initial part is the introduction part which review about Internet addiction and personality. Middle part is related to review of literature findings on Internet addiction, gender differences in Internet addiction and personality. Last section deals with the discussion, future research recommendation and conclusion.
Internet usage is so strongly integrated into behavior of every individual, specifically college going student, that symptoms of internet addiction interrupt their daily activities.
Signs and symptoms are similar to those of addictive behaviors, leading to the classification of those cases as an addiction disorder. This paper reviews to investigate some aspects of the emerging literature on Internet addiction, which is an emerging area and DSM-5 given the name as “Internet Gaming Disorder” which is also a part of Internet addiction. There are reviews regarding the definition, Internet addiction symptoms, assessment of Internet addiction, negative effect of Internet addiction on college going students and some reviews addressing the personality types of mostly internet addict students.
Many studies have been done in this regard using different human behavior. Some studies explored effect of excessive use of Internet mental health of students and others analyzed personality types of internet addicted students. Thus in this article, some of the latest studies are overviewed. Despite the exponential growth of use of Internet among college going students, there is surprisingly little empirical work investigating how it affects overall mental health, personal relations, academic performance as well as its association with different personality traits. Present study thus helps to understand basic trends towards understanding of user‟s preferences and usage patterns and effect on their overall well- being as well as their mental and physical health. This review article also critically examines research conducted on personality attributes of those Internet users who have history of long working hours on Internet. Directions are offered for future research and empirical work.
Keywords: Internet-Addiction, Personality, youth.
1 INTRODUCTION
This review study is a contribution to the understanding of Internet addiction among college students and in particular to generate awareness regarding this problem. Educators and public health experts play an important role in describing how Internet services can affect student behavior. Therefore, the knowledge of personality of student and behavior in using information technologies safely and appropriately should be well documented and understood so as to provide them with
significant new educational and learning opportunities and challenges.
2 INTERNET USE PREVALENCE
India had approximately 483 million internet users in 2018 and this figure is estimated to grow to 666.4 million internet users in 2023. India is already the second-largest online market worldwide. The majority of internet users are mobile users, who take advantage of cheap data pack available in market to expensive landline connections. India had 320.57 million mobile phone internet users in 2016 and an estimate has been
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2 drawn that by 2022, India will have492.68 million mobile phone internet users. (Sanika Diwanji 2019)
Accordin to Statista Research Department (2020), India is the second largest online market in the world with over 560 million internet users ranked only behind China. As per the estimations made, there will be over 600 million internet users in India by 2021.
It was also reported that in 2016, majority of India's digital population accessed the internet via their mobile phone and as per 2016 data, India had an approximate 262 million cell phone internet users living in urban areas, and 109 million living in rural community.
Indian populations have the characteristics of other global internet users in one aspect, which is its passion for social media. It was also estimated that there would be around 400.3 million social network users in India by 2021, which would be a significant increase from 2016, when this figure was about 168 million. (Statista Research Department, Jan 17, 2020)
The most active users of the Internet and modern technologies are adolescents and young adults. This may be the reason to higher prevalence estimates for internet use disorders among adolescents and young adults.
Largest health problem among kids in Korea has been Internet addiction (Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, 2012 Survey of internet use, 2013).
Problematic internet use in Switzerland, which is defined as Compulsive Internet Use Scale results of 28 points or higher was found to be 6.5%
among the 15-19 year age group, and only 0.9% among the general population (Kuenig et al ).
According to Public Health Implications of Excessive Use of the Internet, Computers, Smartphones and Similar Electronic Devices meeting report 2014, various components of “internet addiction” are the following:
• Salience/Excessive use
• Withdrawal
• Tolerance
• Negative repercussions/Conflict
• Craving
• Mood modification
Individuals addicted to the Internet spend their excessive numbers of hours on internet-related activities at the cost of other important life activities, including those associated with fulfilling the basic needs (e.g., food, sleep, intimate contacts).
Beyond these psychological consequences, internet addiction may also have physical and social consequences. Potential physical and social consequences of excessive use of the Internet, computers, smartphones and other electronic devices are:
2.1 Physical health
Inactive lifestyle due to excessive screen time, decreased sleep time and insufficient physical exercise may cause obesity as well as other potential health risks.
Prolonged contact with screen may potentially lead to vision related problems like, eyestrain, dry eye, headache, blurred vision etc.
Prolonged use of electronic screen in a particular posture can cause musculoskeletal problems.
Electronic devices with audio functions can generate harmful levels of sound, which can be linked to permanent damage in auditory functions.
Mobile electronic devices used while doing other tasks can make user more prone to injuries and accidents.
Insufficient hygiene precautions and sharing of mobile devices such as may cause infection while spreading of pathogens and infectious diseases.
2.2 Psychosocial health
Cyber-bullying may lead to serious psychosocial consequences.
Social development may be hampered because of spending too much time online and may lead to social withdrawal or may hinder social skill development through decreased face to face interaction.
Excessive use of electronic devices can be linked to sleep deprivation, which may affects growth and development of adolescents.
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3 Increased availability of the Internet and electronic devices may increase risky and addicted sexual behavior.
Violent content of videos and online games may develop adverse effects on adolescents as well as youths.
Excessive use of the Internet and electronic devices may lead to other social and psychological problems which can be associated with a wide range of social and psychological problems such as lack of psychological well-being, poor self‐ confidence, family problems, marital breakdown, and reduced academic performance.
(WHO, 2014) 3 INTERNET ADDICTION
As of January 2020, almost 4.54 billion people were active internet users;
circumscribe 59% of global population.
China, India and the United States simultaneously rank ahead all other countries in terms of excessive internet users. A world without the internet is impossible because it connects billions of people worldwide, and is a core pillar of the modern informational society. The global online penetration rate is 59 percent. UAE, Denmark, and South Korea are among the countries with the highest internet penetration rate worldwide. As of 2018, Asia was the region with the largest number of online users – over 2 billion at the latest count. Europe was ranked second with almost 705 million internet users. (J. Clement, 2020)
Without any standardized definition of Internet addiction, researchers cannot deny the fact that this phenomenon does exist, and it can be defined as an impulse-control disorder which does not involve an intoxicant‟‟
(Young, 1998)
Samreen & Sharma (2017) have reported that, educational, cultural and psychological domains of world have been revolutionized due to advancement in technology, which has created a new culture that goes global. There is no doubt that excessive use of internet has many side effects on the mental as well as physical health and therefore the negative relationship has exits. Social media is
nothing but the excessive use of internet and the impact of social networks is significant undoubtedly. Ironically people are more connected with a virtual world rather than real world.
Internet-addiction is a serious problem as people are becoming restless when there is unavailability of the internet for long hours. The new generations are becoming worried, anxious and frustrated when connection is not available.
The behavior also becomes peculiar and resolute due to the addiction of internet.
Internet-addiction also affects the physical and mental health of both young and old generation to a larger extent. The main problems arise due to excessive uses of internet are higher expectation, procrastination; fantasizing and youth become inactive in daily activities and capabilities of the individuals has been diminished in many way.
Young was the first who introduced the term Internet addiction as an impulse control disorder which is without intoxicant. Internet addiction thus an overreliance on internet regardless of the type of activities pursued after logging in.
Internet addiction leads to Internet gaming disorder which is related to all kinds of internet gaming activities which cannot be controlled and as a result may cause impairments in various life functions. Internet addiction was included in DSM-5 as Internet gaming disorder in 2013 and diagnostic criteria of which itself shows how severe the effects of Internet addiction and internet gaming disorder are. Some of the diagnostic criteria for Internet gaming disorder are:
lack of adequate planning or poor planning abilities, tolerance, impairment of control, and excessive online time. IA also leads to many personality disorders which is also a major concern for public health practitioners. Excessive internet use and IGD are correlated with many psychological disorders which can impair intellectual, academic, health and many more aspect of life. (Tripathi, 2018)
Clinical cases related to gaming behavior which can cause significant impairment in various functioning have been reported for many years. In 2013, DSM-5 includes Internet gaming disorder
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4 as a serious condition which can leads toimpairment in various aspects of life.
WHO has conducting actions related to the public health implications of uncontrolled use of the Internet, computers, Smartphone and similar electronic devices in response to concerns shown by various professional groups.
World health organization is also in the process of collaborating centers, academics and clinicians about health consequences associated with excessive and uncontrollable use of digital media.
(WHO, 2018)
According to WHO, an increase in the use of the Internet, computers, Smartphone and other electronic devices have many clear and tremendous benefits to the users, but also have negative health consequences. This problem has reached the magnitude of a significant public health concern.
World health organization meeting on these issues was initially organized in 2014 in Tokyo, Japan, in association with Kurihama Medical and Addiction Centre, where a group of experts from various parts of the world examined the available evidence on implications of health conditions due to excessive use of the Internet, smartphones and similar electronic devices. The second WHO meeting in Seoul, Republic of Korea was organized in partnership of the Korean Association of Addiction Psychiatry and Catholic Kwan Dong University and addressed the spectrum, terminology and clinical descriptions of behavioral disorders linked with excessive use of the Internet and other communication and gaming platforms within the conceptual framework of disorders due to addictive behaviors and in the context of the ICD- 11. The third meeting by WHO which was organized in September 2016 in joint collaboration with the Department of Health of Hong Kong SAR, China, had its focus on promotion, prevention and treatment policies of health, promotion of program aimed at reducing the health problems related with excessive use of the Internet, computers, smartphones and other communication platforms. The fourth and last WHO meeting was held in Istanbul, Turkey from 29 November 2017 to 1 December 2017 on the public health implications of addictive behaviors. The
meeting focused on the conceptual and clinical validity of gaming and gambling disorders. In this meeting, different cases of gaming disorder from various countries and their clinical management were presented and discussed.
3.1 PERSONALITY
Personality is considered in terms of relatively enduring characteristics that influence our behavior across many situations, i.e. traits. Traits are important because they help maintaining consistencies in behavior (Walinga &
Stangor, 2014)
The most important common word in defining personality across all the available theories is trait. A personality trait can be define as an enduring disposition of a person to behave with certain behavioral, cognitive, and emotional tendencies to varied demands across different situations (Montag &
Reuter, 2018).
Individual differences can also be seen in how effectively every individual respond to the situations because everyone is unique when it comes to social effectiveness and this uniqueness becomes one‟s „personality‟ which makes one person‟s identity distinct from another.
The five factor model of personality trait describes the personality traits of individual on which they differ.
These five factors are:
Extroversion: it is a phenomenon of concerning with others or outside the self. Extraverted people may be too much talkative, enthusiastic and gregarious and always feel to spend their lots of time with others in social world.
Agreeableness: People in this category are empathic, considerate, friendly and helpful.
People of this kind of trait are not as much of likely to go out of their way to help others. They focus on the interpersonal relationship.
Conscientiousness: People with this personality trait are generally very careful. They think carefully before acting. Their behavior is very compulsive. Sometimes they may be fewer goals oriented and they can be understood as more
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5 active toward dutifulness andcompetence.
Neuroticism: They more or less shows negative emotions. They didn‟t respond to the stress related to the environmental situations. They are self conscious and shy. They are more prone to phobia, depression and anxiety and also they have vulnerability to show emotional instability and self-consciousness.
Openness to experiences: People concerning with this trait feel active imagination. They are attentive and intellectually curious. Openness is also characterized by the cognitive disposition to creativity and esthetics (Naz & Sharma, 2018;
Walinga & Stangor, 2014).
Since the field of behavioral addiction is relatively recent in comparison to other more established fields, it is of prime importance to understand how addictive processes related to these new forms of behavioral addictions might be facilitated or attenuate in the context of personality research (Andreassen et al. 2013; Grant et al. 2010).
Several personality traits appear to be linked with various Internet-related activities such as social network sites, online gaming etc. Studies have indicated that people with large offline social networks and people with higher self- esteem, use Facebook for their social improvement (Ross et al. 2009; Zywica et al. 2008), whereas people higher in narcissistic personality traits tend to be more active on Facebook and other social networking sites because they want to present themselves favorably online and because of the effect of virtual environment on them which help them to construct their ideal selves (Buffardi &
Campbell, 2008; Mehdizadeh, 2010).
Personality of an individual influence their cognitions, motivation, and behaviors in a variety of situations and several studies shows that SNS use is closely related to specific personality traits (Ryan & Xenos, 2011).Further they reported that facebook users are mostly extraverted and narcissistic, but less
conscientious and socially lonely, than non-users.
4 REVIEWOF LITERATURE
Hussain & Pontes (2018) reviewed specific literature on technological addiction and personality, and argued that greater use of technology and technological addiction is associated with specific personality traits, disorders, and characteristics. It was discussed that the causal pathway between these two concepts may be such that one can potentiate the other and not exclusively unidirectional (i.e., one causing the other). The finding shows that individuals presenting specific personality features may be particularly at risk for developing technological addictions.
(Kayiş, et al., 2016) also reported in their findings that internet addiction and big five-personality traits are closely related.
This study has investigated relations between internet addiction and big five personality traits and meta-analysis method was used for the purpose of this study.12 studies were included in the meta-analysis and 13 effect sizes were calculated from these researches. After meta- analysis, it was found that all big five-personality traits had a meaningful relation with internet addiction. It was also determined that neuroticism was positively related with internet addiction whereas openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness were negatively related with it. As a result, it was considered that big five-personality traits are an important factor in terms of internet addiction.
Baniya, Saini, Verma, Soni, & Kesharwani (2016) has done a study on the study on relationship of internet addictive behavior with personality traits among 140 medical students and found that individuals having traits of neuroticism tend to experience increased levels of stress and interpersonal conflict because of this particular trait. Internet addictive behavior was found to be lower among extroversion traits because they are more involve in social activities, making friend easily, and cheerful.
Kawa and Shafi (2015) has done research on Internet-addiction, impulsivity and psychological distress among 150 university students of Kashmir and found that male students
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6 experience more internet-addiction,impulsivity and psychological distress than girls. Internet-addiction found to have significant positive relationship with psychological distress and impulsivity.
A study was conducted by Ge, Se, &
Zhang, 2014 on relationship between internet-addiction, personality traits and mental health of 796 urban left-behind children in china. The internet-addiction rate of urban left-behind children was figured out and it was found that males have high internet addiction rate than females. A significant relationship among internet-addiction, personality traits and mental health was also reported in the study. It was also reported that total score of internet-addiction and its related dimensions can serve as indicators of personality neuroticism, psychoticism and the total scores of mental health.
Mark & Ganzach (2014) estimate the relationship of the Big 5 personality traits and Internet use in a large nationally representative U.S. sample of over 6900 young adults. It was concluded that that global Internet use is positively related to Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness. Relationship of the big-5 personality factor was also examined with online communication, leisure, academic, and economic activities. Extraversion was correlated with the most different Internet activities.
Rosenberg and Feder (2014) reported that several personality factors such as lack of perseverance, psychoticism , neuroticism, sensation seeking, and aggressiveness is associated with Internet addiction. They further add that, Internet addiction also positively associated with several interpersonal factors and also associated with low self-esteem, family dissatisfaction, stressful events, and few social friends, poor relations between teachers and students, and conflict among family relationships. Internet addiction has also found to be correlated with poor connectedness to school, less involvement in family function and lower satisfaction with academic performance.
Bruno, et al., (2014) investigated risk of internet addiction by looking at the interplay between demographic characteristics, student Internet usage and Big Five personality traits. The study explored the prevalence of Internet
addiction in a sample of Italian university students and a moderate trend regarding partially addicted students was found, it was also partially supported that some Big Five personality traits were important predictors among university students of Internet addiction. Result of the study further shows that agreeableness and extraversion were inversely related to Internet addiction; on the other hand, openness was positively associated with internet addiction. Additionally, a significant negative correlation was found between Agreeableness and Internet addiction risk. Extraversion showed a significant negative effect in predicting Internet addiction as well as the correlation value. Regarding the openness personality trait, the current results of this identify a significant positive effect in predicting the risk of Internet addiction among university students.
Conscientiousness trait proved to be no predictor of Internet addiction, and finally emotional stability was unrelated to Internet addiction.
Servidio (2014) by using multiple linear regressions indicated that males were more inclined to use the Internet than females and student‟s behaviors were predictors of Internet addiction. It was further reported that personality traits such as agreeableness and extraversion traits have negative relation with Internet addiction, whereas openness has a positive relation. Goel, Subramanyam, & Kamath (2013) studied the prevalence of internet addiction and its existing psychopathology associated with it in adolescent age group. Of the 987 adolescents participated in the study, 68.9% were female and 31.1% were males. Out of total participants, 74.5%
were average users. Only 0.7% was found to be addicts. This study concluded that, we should learn to differentiate between excessive internet uses from Internet addiction to be more vigilant about psychopathology. Andreassen, et al.
(2013) reported that big five personality traits including neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were found to explain between 6% and 17% of the variance in different types of technological addictions. Results also showed that neuroticism was positively related with
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7 Internet addiction, extroversion waspositively related with several technological and behavioral addictions, openness to experience was negatively associated with Facebook addiction and mobile phone addiction, agreeableness was negatively associated with Internet addiction, and conscientiousness was negatively associated with Facebook addiction, video game addiction, Internet addiction. The positive associations suggest one or several underlying pathological factors.
Several studies have been conducted in line with excessive use of internet and most of the studies have systematically shown that excessive use of the Internet may lead to Internet addiction (Durkee et al. 2012; Pontes &
Griffiths, 2017; Lortie & Guitton, 2013).
These studies comprise a diverse spectrum of online activities which may cause problems for the individual using it in an uncontrollable manner.
According to Buckner et al., 2012;
Montag, Jurkiewicz, & Reutera, 2010, one way to study the relationship between subjects‟ personality traits and the use of the Internet is to use the Big Five factor model as a specific conceptual framework.
Ryan & Xenos, 2011 reported that a variety of personality characteristics can be applied for describing the Internet user‟s profile. This study aimed to know more about the possibility that people with certain personality characteristics were more likely to be Facebook .
Following the advances in research, several studies established a strong connection between personality traits and Internet addiction (Chang &
Law, 2008; Correa, Hinsley, & Gil De Zúñiga, 2010; Landers & Lounsbury, 2006; Rice & Markey, 2009).
Standard diagnostic criteria also were not available to clearly identify individuals with Internet addiction, because it has different forms and it depends upon diverse factors (Price, 2011; Young, 2009). Researchers have adopted different strategies for studying Internet overuse and its negative impact on the way people develop behavioral addiction (Huang, 2010).
Many terms have been proposed to describe Internet addiction problems, such as „„compulsive computer use‟‟,
„„problematic computer use‟‟ (Caplan, 2005), „„pathological Internet use „term was given by Lei & Wu in 2007,
„„pathological computer use‟‟ term was given by Young in 2009 etc.
Personality has an important role in how subjects interact with information technologies. Charlton and Danforth (2010) reported that scores of addicted subjects increased with low scores for Extraversion, Agreeableness and Emotional stability.
Based on criterion for pathological gambling defined in DSM-IV (1994), Young (1996) and Griffiths (1996) was among the first researchers to investigate Internet addiction from a scientific perspective by publishing case study report of individuals who suffered from this condition.
Survey conducted by NGO “Child Rights and You” revealed that adolescents using internet in excessive amount has undergo some negative experiences and half of them are addicted to it. This study also informed that 75 % of adolescents among the ages 13-18 are not aware with the minimum age requirement for creating any social media account and two among every five users are having privacy setting of requests from friends of friends and/or everyone, thus more prone to online threats and hazards (New Indian X press, 2020).
Another study “Online Safety and Internet Addiction: A Study Conducted Amongst Adolescents in Delhi-NCR” was conducted on 630 adolescents across 8 schools and provided information about tendency of adolescents related to internet usage, protection and addiction among adolescents. This survey also inform that, since internet is a vital medium for express ourselves, it should be the duty of parents, communities, the state, and the society as a whole to ensure that children are protected as well empowered to protect themselves from online addiction and threats.
Research also shows that subjects, who score high values in neuroticism, generally tend to use the Internet to avoid loneliness (Butt & Phillips, 2008).
According to Widyanto and Griffiths (2006), studies on the concept of Internet addiction should focus on particular activity carried out by students
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8 on internet, because it is the behaviorthey engage in online and digital environments that is problematic, rather than the medium that influences the subject‟s behavior.
In line with above findings, it was also found that conscientiousness is inversely related to Internet addiction.
(Yang and Liu, 2006)
Internet addiction was first introduced in 1996 at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association (Young, 1996), it stimulate a controversial debate among both clinicians and academicians (Griffiths, 1996).
Armstrong et al. (2000) have done a study on 50 participants and found that low self-esteem was associated with Internet addiction.
Cao et al. (2007) reported in their study that Internet addicts were associated with higher neuroticism, higher psychoticism, and lie scores Hardie and Tee (2007) found that neuroticism is related with Internet addiction.
Kim et al. (2008) have done a study on 1471 online game users and reported that aggression and narcissistic personality have positive relation with online game addiction.
Internet addict people have been found to show high score on impulsivity than non internet addict person and as well as scores comparable to the group of pathological gamblers (Lee et al., 2012).
Montag et al. (2011) reported in their study that low conscientiousness and low self- directedness are negatively associated with Internet addiction.
Tsai et al. (2009) asserted that neuroticism and higher probability for psychiatric disorders are associated with Internet addiction
Yan et al. (2014) has done a study on 892 college students by using Eysenck‟s personality questionnaire and Chen Internet Addiction Scale, and found that Internet addicts were characterized by higher neuroticism, lower extraversion, and higher psychoticism.
Xiuqin et al., (2010) has done a study on Mental Health, Personality, and Parental Rearing Styles of Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder which aim was to compare adolescent male‟s personality profiles with and without Internet addiction disorder (IAD), and to
determine whether IAD is related with specific parental rearing behaviors.
Results of this study confirm that IAD occurs parallel with mental symptoms and personality traits such as introversion and psychoticism. Overall findings suggest that parenting style and family functions are important factors in the development of Internet dependency.
5 METHOD
Relevant databases (Google Scholar, Pub Med Microsoft Academic Search, Z Library etc.) have been studied to identify appropriate studies. The following keywords of search terms were used in the database search: Internet addiction, Relationship between various personality traits and internet addiction, public health implication of behavioral addiction related to excessive use of internet addiction etc. To identify additional studies, the reference lists of relevant review articles and research studies have also been studied. The full-text articles of retained citations have been retrieved and also full-text articles have been studied to identify studies that satisfied the inclusion criteria.
6 RESULT & DISCUSSION
The objective of this research paper is to review and understanding of constructs such as internet-addiction, personality, relationship between the nature of personality and prevalence of use of internet, proneness of particular personality trait people towards excessive use of internet, and to provide a conceptual framework of the work that has been done in this area. This study is also a preliminary step toward understanding the prevalence of internet addiction among college students in India as well as worldwide.
It has been found out that any kind of addiction is related with an uncontrollable desire or need, often appears with loss of control, obsession with use, and continued use despite behavioral problems. In this review paper, it has been found that addiction of the Internet can result in many negative consequences, for example, Students and youths who obsessively and continuously chat with friends takes away their own valuable study time, which results in poor
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9 academic performance (Young, 2004).Hawi & Samaha (2018) reported in their
study that agreeableness,
conscientiousness, openness to experiences, emotional stability, Internet usage, and social media usage predicted both, Internet addiction as well as social media addiction. Studies also revealed the fact that personality traits or big five personality traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experiences, and emotional stability, are all negative predictors of IA (Ko et al. 2012; Kuss, Griffiths, and Binder 2013; Müller et al. 2013). Studies also reported that males were more inclined to use the Internet than females and student‟s behaviors were predictors of Internet addiction. Personality traits such as agreeableness and extraversion traits have negative relation with Internet addiction, whereas openness has a positive relation (Servidio, 2014) It has been examined by meta- analysis method that internet addiction and big five personality traits are related. It was found that all big five-personality traits had a meaningful relation with internet addiction. It was also found that neuroticism has a positive relation with internet addiction whereas openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness were negatively related with it (Kayiş, et al., 2016). Another research on personality and internet usage was done by Mark &
Ganzach in 2014 and the results revealed that extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness are associated with overall internet use. Results also indicated that extraversion and neuroticism are the strongest predictors of internet use. It has also been reported that several personality factors is associated with Internet addiction.
Internet addiction has also found to be correlated with poor connectedness to school, less involvement in family function and lower satisfaction with academic performance (Rosenberg &
Feder, 2014). It has been stated that online games and online communication are the most recurring Internet activities for excessive users. It was also partially supported that some Big Five personality traits were important predictors among university students of Internet addiction
(Bruno, et al.). Hierarchical multiple regressions showed that personality traits explained between 6% and 17% of the variance in the seven behavioral addictions, and suggests that personality to a varying degree explains scores on measures of addictive behaviors (Andreassen, et al., 2013). Another research highlighted about a significant relationship among internet-addiction, personality traits and mental health. (Ge, Se, & Zhang, 2014) It has also been reported in several studies that genetics could influence Internet addiction either directly or mediated via personality traits or other variables (Montag and Reuter, 2018). Internet addicts are associated with lower extraversion and higher psychoticism scores. Moreover, Internet addicts reported more symptoms on the symptom checklist 90 and less parental support (Xiquin et al., 2010)
Several studies have been reported that Internet addiction leads to higher neuroticism, lower extraversion, and higher psychoticism (Yan et al., 2014; Cao et al., 2007).
It has been reported in one of the study that only neuroticism and perceived support from social networks are significant predictors of excessive internet use (Hardie and Tee, 2007).
7 CONCLUSION
To sum up all, the current literature review of internet addiction and personality has shown that males are more internet-addicted than females; but females are more smart-phone addicted than males, and internet-addiction creates many behavioral and physical problems as well as work problems. A relationship has been noticed between personality traits and internet-addiction, especially between big five personality traits and Internet addiction. It is important that personality traits should be taken into account while developing programs and carrying out intervention studies for preventing and treating internet addiction and developing public health programs. It can be proposed that there is a need to evaluate more research findings and joint evaluation of researches in which information is collected through qualitative and experimental methods as well.
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10 In addition, future meta-analysisresearches while investigating the relationship between internet addiction and dimensions of big five personality traits can consider moderator roles of different age groups, socio-economic status, and education level. Research and theory in personality and technological addictions have developed considerably but further research is needed into investigating the intricate relationship personality and technological addiction.
Research on the relationship between personality constructs and various aspects of excessive Internet use has so far resulted in surprisingly consistent results. More research is needed with measures from the field of abnormal psychology and personality disorders, in particular, to find out the actual cause of Internet addiction and neurobiological aspects regarding personality traits which make young adolescents more prone to Internet addiction and other kinds of technological addiction.
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