Personality and Internet usage: A large-scale representative study of young adults

• Extroversion, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness predict global Internet use.
• Extraversion, Openness and Neuroticism positively relate to Internet communication.
• Extroversion, Openness, Conscientiousness positively relate to Internet leisure use.
• Extroversion, Neuroticism and Conscientiousness positively relate to e-commerce.

Studies that have examined the relationship between personality and Internet use so far were largely conducted on the basis of small, non-representative samples, and have yielded conflicting results. In the current study we 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 with average age of 26. Our results suggest that global Internet use is positively related to Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness. We also examine the relationship of the Big 5 with online communication, leisure, academic, and economic activities. Extraversion is correlated with the most different Internet activities. Our findings contrast with many of the relationships found in previous research which have used small, homogeneous samples. We discuss these differences in term of the size and type of samples which were used in previous research, in terms of the time periods of Internet development in which the research was conducted, and in terms of the Internet activities which were measured.