New research suggests that social media sites can work as predicators of personality.
![[optional image description]](https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/shutterstock_92288749.jpg)
According to the theory of the Five Factor model, human personality can be divided into five different core dimensions: openness (having an active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, and intellectual curiosity), conscientiousness (being organized and achievement-oriented), extraversion (being social, assertive, and talkative), agreeableness (being helpful, cooperative, and sympathetic), and neuroticism (being anxious, envious, guilty, or depressive). Those factors, the theory goes, describe someone's overall personality and offer important clues when it comes to that someone's role in social interactions. That makes them valuable not only to social science researchers, but also to educators and daters and content providers and marketers.
Traditionally, personality factors, the Big Five and otherwise, have been measured according to self-reported info -- through questionnaires and the like. But people's own view of themselves is often notoriously at odds with the way other people view them, so simply asking people about themselves can lead to discrepancies and, occasionally, misleading results.