PREDICTION OF CRIMINAL TENDENCIES BYSOCIAL MEDIA USAGE AND PERSONALITYCHARACTERISTICS

Youth criminal activities and social media use have a convoluted relationship that is dependent on many factors. It is possible to predict that many people will continue to benefit from understanding the unique relationship between criminal tendencies and social media use. This study aims on hearing if social media use among the youth could be directly attributed to personality traits related with the Big Five model and general criminal behavior A questionnaire was administered to youngsters without any severe psychiatric diagnoses or criminal convictions, assessing their habits on social media and measuring their personality and criminal tendencies. Weak positive correlations were found between social media use and Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness,and Emotional stability as personality traits. Conscientiousness showed an inverse relation with criminal tendencies, while emotional stability demonstrated a positive correlation: r = 0.230, p = 0.018. The criminal tendency was weakly correlated to the usage of social media, and the correlation was not statistically significant: r = 0.081, p = 0.409. Instead, regression analysis indicated that a model containing conscientiousness, openness, and emotional stability explained the maximum variance in criminal tendencies. These findings might indicate that the personality traits influence more on delinquent behaviors of adolescents compared to the influences of social media usage, although these relationships are still not clear. In addition, the current research also highlights a point that extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and finally social media addiction are positively correlated. This study raises the need for further research toward an understanding of the complex relationship between personality, social media engagement, and criminal behavior in view of third variables that can have an intervening effect.