Revisiting the social enhancement hypothesis: Extroversion indirectly predicts number of Facebook friends operating through Facebook usage

An online survey of college-age Facebook users (N = 209) found that extroversion, narcissism, openness, and agreeableness predicted friending more people on Facebook. However, only extroversion continued to exert an effect when these and other personality variables were examined together in one regression model, while controlling for frequency of Facebook usage and gender. Also, a path analysis model showed that extroversion directly predicted number of Facebook friends and the number of months people were active on Facebook. In addition, extroversion indirectly influenced number of Facebook friends, operating through months active on Facebook and hours per week spent on Facebook in a parallel mediation effect. Findings offer support for the social enhancement hypothesis, which argues that extroverted people benefit the most from social media.