Data Shows the Internet Is Making Our Personalities Worse (But There’s Reason for Optimism)

If you want to be successful in life, there are plenty of personality traits and behaviors that can help. But being conscientious, science tells us, is among the most important. 

“Conscientious people have better health, are less likely to be depressed, are wealthier and live longer, compared to people who are less conscientious,” reported Scientific American recently. “When compared to extraversion, conscientiousness is more strongly related to academic success, work performance and lower rates of substance use.” 

All of which means, it would be alarming for both individual strivers and society in general if there were to be a general decline in conscientiousness among the population. But that’s just what the data is showing. Many experts believe the internet is to blame. 

Are our personalities getting worse?

The conversation about the general decline in conscientiousness was kicked off in August by Financial Times journalist John Burn-Murdoch. He dug into data from USC’s Understanding America Study and found a “sustained erosion of conscientiousness, with the fall especially pronounced among young adults.” 

People in their twenties and thirties “report feeling increasingly easily distracted and careless, less tenacious and less likely to make and deliver on commitments,” he writes. 

Other data sources point in the same direction. According to a recent study published in the journal Neurology, “more U.S. adults than ever report having serious trouble concentrating, remembering or making decisions,” reports Science News. The uptick in distractibility started in 2016 and, as Burn-Murdoch found, is more pronounced among young adults.  

While the decline in consciousness might be the most alarming change in our personalities for parents and employers, it’s not the only noticeable recent shift in our collective character. We also appear to be getting more neurotic and less extroverted. 

Journalist and author Olga Khazan is not shy about summing up the overall direction of these changes on her Substack:

“These charts suggest that the personalities of young people, here defined as ages 16 to 39, have essentially worsened over the years. If you don’t like the word ‘worse,’ you can think of them as becoming less ‘adaptive’ (to use a sciencey term) or less resilient (Brene Brown-ey) or more vulnerable (therapy-y) or less likely to succeed (podcasty).” 

Is the internet to blame? 

These trends are averages. Individuals’ personalities may have not changed at all or changed in another direction. But overall we seem to be growing less social, stable, and reliable. Why? 

A broad shift like this is likely to have multiple causes. But commentators are pretty confident about one contributing factor. Everybody thinks the internet is a prime suspect. 

“The advent of ubiquitous and hyper-engaging digital media has led to an explosion in distraction, as well as making it easier than ever to either not make plans in the first place or to abandon them,” writes Burn-Murdoch. 

Screen-based connection feels more tenuous and easier to bail on, points out policy researcher Carolyn Gorman. The “loss of face-to-face relationships may help explain why traits such as reliability and sociability appear to be eroding,” she writes.

“In physical classrooms and offices, showing up on time, contributing to discussions, and meeting deadlines are visible to peers and supervisors alike,” she notes. In remote setups, those positive behaviors are much less public. 

A glint of optimism 

All of which sounds pretty gloomy for our collective ability to thrive and meet the (sizable) challenges of the moment. But while it’s certainly not good news that the internet seems to be reshaping our personalities for the worse, there is actually a glint of optimism here. 

One, as a society we seem to be waking up to the dangers of too much screen time. The blockbuster success of Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation, is one sign. So is the roll out of a number of bans on phones during school hours across the country and the world. 

Even more hopeful are early indications that people are starting to clock the dangers posed by their devices and adjust their behavior themselves. “Time spent on social media peaked in 2022 and has since gone into steady decline,” according to a global survey of 250,000 adults carried out for the FT and GWI, Burn-Murdoch reported in another article earlier this month.  

The only catch? North America is bucking this worldwide trend. Across the developed world, adults spent an average of two hours and 20 minutes per day on social media at the end of 2024, down almost 10 percent since 2022. Meanwhile here in America we’re still consuming ever more political clickbait and online slop. 

A reminder: you can change your personality 

Perhaps the biggest cause for optimism though comes from Khazan, who wrote a whole book about the science and personal experience of consciously trying to change your own personality. In short, her message is: it is possible. 

“I find this data a little gratifying, because it shows that not only can we change our personalities for the better (the topic of my book), we can also change them for the worse. We have free will, and our actions can and do shape our personalities, for better or worse,” she writes. 

At the moment, it seems, a lot of us are choosing to use technology to insulate ourselves from other people and the world’s many depressing problems. That’s understandable, but it’s not without consequences both for the world and for us. Scrolling fixes nothing and appears to be changing our personalities for the worse. 

But if our everyday choices can make us more brittle, flaky, and isolated, other choices could make us more interconnected, determined, and strong. I’m not saying that’s an easy turnaround to accomplish, but it is possible. Which way do you want to go?