Amichai-Hamburger ( 2007) claims that personality is an important factor in this context. As the Internet becomes an increasingly integrated part of everyday life (Elliott and Urry 2010 Persson and Eriksson-Björling 2011), it is of crucial importance to enhance our understanding of the determinants of online human behavior. The Internet is thus used to collect information related to work and studies, but also as a source of entertainment.

People use the Internet to search information, communicate, shop, listen to music, watch movies, play games, etc. The implications of the results for theory and practice are discussed in detail.įor most people in Sweden (and other wired countries), the Internet has become an essential part of everyday life.

Apparently, understanding the relationship between personality and Internet usage is not possible without considering the modifying role of categories of Internet usage and generation cohorts. In these cohorts, conscientiousness was positively associated with using the Internet for information and duty activities but negatively associated with using the Internet for leisure and social activities. Conscientiousness was a significant predictor of Internet usage only for DotNets and GenXers (born 1965–1976). Openness to experience was positively associated with Internet usage but only among Baby Boomers. Extraversion was positively associated with using the Internet for leisure and social activities among DotNets (born 1977–1999), whereas among Dutifuls (born 1910–1945) and Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964) extraversion was positively associated with using the Internet for information and duty activities. Specifically, neuroticism was negatively associated with using the Internet for activities relating to information and duties but not for leisure and social activities. However, exploring these associations across categories of Internet usage and generation cohorts revealed some other interesting patterns.

Neuroticism was negatively associated with overall Internet usage, whereas extraversion and openness to experience were shown to be positively associated with overall Internet usage. In the present study, we examine the relationship between the Five Factor Model of Personality and Internet usage in a large nationally representative Swedish sample ( N = 1694). Studies examining the relationship between personality and Internet usage have usually used small and non-representative samples.

Wired that way personality profile pdf