Digital Citizenship and the Big Five Personality Traits

Over the past two decades, the internet has become an increasingly important venue for political expression, community building, and social activism. Scholars in a wide range of disciplines have endeavored to understand and measure how these transformations have affected individuals’ civic attitudes...

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Main Authors: Michael Joseph Dominic Roberts, Randy Connolly, Joel Conley, Janet Miller
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-07-01
Series:Informatics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9709/10/3/58
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author Michael Joseph Dominic Roberts
Randy Connolly
Joel Conley
Janet Miller
author_facet Michael Joseph Dominic Roberts
Randy Connolly
Joel Conley
Janet Miller
author_sort Michael Joseph Dominic Roberts
collection DOAJ
description Over the past two decades, the internet has become an increasingly important venue for political expression, community building, and social activism. Scholars in a wide range of disciplines have endeavored to understand and measure how these transformations have affected individuals’ civic attitudes and behaviors. The Digital Citizenship Scale (original and revised form) has become one of the most widely used instruments for measuring and evaluating these changes, but to date, no study has investigated how digital citizenship behaviors relate to exogenous variables. Using the classic Big Five Factor model of personality (Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism), this study investigated how personality traits relate to the key components of digital citizenship. Survey results were gathered across three countries (<i>n</i> = 1820), and analysis revealed that personality traits map uniquely on to digital citizenship in comparison to traditional forms of civic engagement. The implications of these findings are discussed.
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spelling doaj.art-2acf40c9a0074ddfaeb680c318dc18c92023-11-19T11:13:27ZengMDPI AGInformatics2227-97092023-07-011035810.3390/informatics10030058Digital Citizenship and the Big Five Personality TraitsMichael Joseph Dominic Roberts0Randy Connolly1Joel Conley2Janet Miller3Bissett School of Business, General Management, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB T3E 6K6, CanadaDepartment of Mathematics and Computing, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB T3E 6K6, CanadaDepartment of Mathematics and Computing, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB T3E 6K6, CanadaDepartment of Student Counselling, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB T3E 6K6, CanadaOver the past two decades, the internet has become an increasingly important venue for political expression, community building, and social activism. Scholars in a wide range of disciplines have endeavored to understand and measure how these transformations have affected individuals’ civic attitudes and behaviors. The Digital Citizenship Scale (original and revised form) has become one of the most widely used instruments for measuring and evaluating these changes, but to date, no study has investigated how digital citizenship behaviors relate to exogenous variables. Using the classic Big Five Factor model of personality (Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism), this study investigated how personality traits relate to the key components of digital citizenship. Survey results were gathered across three countries (<i>n</i> = 1820), and analysis revealed that personality traits map uniquely on to digital citizenship in comparison to traditional forms of civic engagement. The implications of these findings are discussed.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9709/10/3/58digital citizenshipmeasurementpersonality traitsOCEANonline activism
spellingShingle Michael Joseph Dominic Roberts
Randy Connolly
Joel Conley
Janet Miller
Digital Citizenship and the Big Five Personality Traits
Informatics
digital citizenship
measurement
personality traits
OCEAN
online activism
title Digital Citizenship and the Big Five Personality Traits
title_full Digital Citizenship and the Big Five Personality Traits
title_fullStr Digital Citizenship and the Big Five Personality Traits
title_full_unstemmed Digital Citizenship and the Big Five Personality Traits
title_short Digital Citizenship and the Big Five Personality Traits
title_sort digital citizenship and the big five personality traits
topic digital citizenship
measurement
personality traits
OCEAN
online activism
url https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9709/10/3/58
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