An Analysis of Secondary High School Student's Personality Dimensions and the Use of Virtual Social Networks in the 4th District of Shiraz City, 2014

Access to virtual social networks is a growing phenomenon and an increasing number of adolescents join these networks everyday. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student's personality dimensions and the use of virtual social networks.
The research design of this study was a correlation method. The population of this study were secondary high school students in the Shiraz 4th District Education Department. 62 students were selected by simple random sampling. A shortened version of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and a virtual social network questionnaire developed by the researchers were implemented. For statistical analysis, the correlation coefficient and multiple regressions were used by stepwisemethod.
The findings of this study showed that students with a neuroticism personality experience greater dependence to the use of virtual social networks. This relationship was significant at the level of 0.01 and with a correlation coefficient of 0.361. Also, students who have an agreeableness personality showed greater dependence to the use of virtual social networks. This relationship was significant at the level of 0.05 and with a correlation coefficient of 0.260. Neuroticism dimension explained 0.13 variances related to the quality of using virtual social networking.
The results of this study show that, from different dimensions of personality, only personality characteristics of neuroticism can predict the quality of using virtual social networks.