The way your Facebook profile looks like, how many friends you have, how many photos, how often you change them, all can tell a lot about you as a person. Researchers have discovered that both extroverts and neurotic people upload an insane number of photos on their profiles. The key difference between these two groups of people is that while extroverts change their profile picture often, neurotics add more pictures to their albums.
This analysis was conducted on 100 people of ages between 17 and 55 and the participants, who were 70 percent women, had to fill out demographic and personality questionnaires. The researchers then monitored the test subjects how they uploaded photos and interacted with their friends on Facebook.
The connection between extroverts and the large number of uploaded photos is not so out of the ordinary, but the fact that neurotics have the same tendencies is. They are usually characterized as people with a temperamental nature who are prone to a lot of stress and anxiety.
“Neurotics strongly desire approval, but they may not be good communicators and they lack social skills”, said study author Azar Eftekhar, a Ph.D. student in the department of psychology at the University of Wolverhampton, in the United Kingdom.
“As socially anxious individuals, they see Facebook [as] a safe place for self-expression and to compensate for their offline deficiencies,” Eftekhar told Live Science.
“Our findings suggest [neurotics] seek acceptance implicitly through intensive photo uploads to look more attractive and popular online and to ‘keep up with the Joneses,’ or to keep up with the popular visual culture,” she said.
On the other hand, people who are conscientious tend to upload more photos and videos and create more personalized photo albums than people who are less diligent in real life. “The point is that such [conscientious] individuals are self-disciplined and goal-orientated, thus they have [a] tendency to document and organize their photos and videos using online visual tools,” Eftekhar said.
Lastly, the people who are generally nice human beings and avoid arguing, tend to receive more likes and comments than those who think more about themselves. And since these are the tokens within Facebook, being nice actually pays off.