Scientists develop new method to make glass ‘smart’

You may not be anonymous online as you think, according to a new study which found that just 30 minutes of browsing behaviour can indicate your personality and provide a unique digital signature to identify you.

“Our research suggests a person’s personality traits can be deduced by their general Internet usage. This differs from other studies that have only looked at the use of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter,” said Ikusan R. Adeyemi, from the Universiti Teknologi in Malaysia.

“That we show these behavioural signatures exist opens up new research into understanding online behaviour,” said Adeyemi.

Research linking personality traits to computer usage has typically focused on social media. For example, extrovert people tend to use these platforms to enlarge their boundary of friends and influence, while introvert individuals spend more time on social media to compensate for a probable lack of physical interaction.

However, a person’s general online browsing behaviour can also reflect their choice, preference and reflexes, which is largely controlled by their unique psychological characteristics.

The study recruited volunteers and monitored their Internet usage. This included many factors such as the duration of the Internet session, number of websites browsed and total number of requests made. The analysis of this data showed strong links between a person’s personality and browsing behaviour.