If you feel frustrated when your WiFi connection stops working, It could be because of your personality. When digital technology stops working, people with a fear of missing out (FOMO) or an internet addiction have more extreme reactions, according to a new study.
Researchers from De Montfort University in the UK, also demonstrated that certain personality traits influence people’s responses to the lack of digital technology: people who were seen as being more neurotic had extreme reactions to failures in digital technology. Responses include getting angry, panicking or feeling depressed. These responses have also been shown to have a detrimental impact on productivity and can lead to poor job performance. In the study, 630 participants aged 18-68 completed an online questionnaire in which they self-reported their responses to failures in digital technology, fear of missing out, internet addiction and answered questions that scored them on the BIG-5 personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism The results showed that the fear of missing out, internet addiction, extroversion and neuroticism all have a significantly influence on maladaptive responses, meaning the people most psychologically dependent on digital technology are most likely to have maladaptive responses when it goes wrong. They also showed a link between age and response: as age increases, the level of frustration that a person experiences decreases.