The Relationship between Personality Traits, Self-Esteem, and Intensity of Facebook Usage among Tehrani High School Students

Access to social networks including Facebook is a growing phenomenon and an increasing number of people join these networks everyday. This study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between personality traits, selfesteem, and intensity of Facebook usage among Tehrani high school students. In this descriptive-correlational research the statistical population consisted of 115129 high school students in 2013-2014 academic year. The sample was drawn via multistage cluster sampling and 300 Facebook users were selected. The instrumentation comprised NEO Personality Inventory, Coopersmith SelfEsteem Inventory and Facebook Intensity Scale. The data were analyzed through descriptive (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage) as well as inferential statistics (Pearson correlation and concurrent regression). Results showed that personality traits such as extraversion, conscientiousness and global self-esteem predict 0.48 percent of the number of Facebook friends. In addition, agreeableness as well as global and family self-esteem predict 0.33% of the time per day spent using Facebook. Finally, neuroticism can negatively predict 0.08 percent of Facebook integration into individuals’ daily activities. The findings indicated that personality traits and different dimensions of students’ self-esteem could predict the number of Facebook friends and the time per day spent using Facebook; nevertheless, they were not good predictors of integration of Facebook into student’s daily activities.