The Role of Students' Personality Traits in the Effective Use of Social Networking Sites in the Educational Context

By critically reviewing the theory and previous research in the domains of education, personality psychology and social networking sites (SNS) use, this chapter investigates the implications of educational SNS use for students with different personality structures. Conscientiousness is shown to be crucial for academic performance, with indications that neuroticism, agreeableness and openness are important as well. With regard to SNS use in schools, we give a short review of the existing studies, which yielded contradictory findings when it comes to SNS's effect on academic achievement, but are fairly in agreement about students' positive attitudes toward their use in schools. As our main purpose, we present personality-related findings and make predictions about the benefits of educational SNS use for introverted and highly neurotic students, and those with low self-esteem. We conclude that introducing SNS into the educational context would be valuable for all students, especially with regard to giving them equal chances in realizing their potential.