Personality and content preferences on social network sites in South Africa

Abstract

Worldwide, visual content, such as photos and videos, have increased dramatically on social network sites (SNS), with South Africa being no exception. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between two personality traits – need for cognition and need for affect – and visual and verbal content preference on SNS in South Africa. A survey was conducted and data were obtained from 307 social network site users. The main findings showed that personality does have an influence on SNS users’ preference for visual or verbal content. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.