Is Social Media Use Changing Who We Are? Examining the Bidirectional Relationship Between Personality and Social Media Use

Social media has changed the way we live. It is now so integral to daily life that it is one of the top activities that people spend their time on each day. Given its ubiquity, it is important to understand what kinds of personality traits draw people toward social media and whether social media changes personality. The present study utilizes a longitudinal design with a large nationally representative sample (N = 11,629) to examine the bidirectional relationship between personality and social media use (SMU). First, cross-lagged analyses revealed a bidirectional relationship between SMU and neuroticism such that neuroticism predicted increased SMU, but SMU also predicted increased neuroticism. However, while increased SMU predicted reduced honesty/humility, honesty/humility did not predict SMU. No other relationships emerged between personality and SMU. This study is the first to examine the extent to which personality both predicts SMU, and is in turn reciprocally shaped by social media exposure in a large-scale national probability panel study.