The Influence of Personality and Education on Online News Consumption and Reader Satisfaction – A Systematic Review

Abstract

Digital transformation has redefined news consumption by shifting audiences from traditional print to mobile applications, websites and social media channels. As competition among digital news platforms intensifies, understanding the determinants of reader satisfaction has become crucial. Among the variables shaping news engagement, personality (specifically the introversion–extraversion spectrum) and educational attainment (undergraduate versus postgraduate) have emerged as decisive yet underexplored predictors. This systematic review synthesizes studies published between 2010 and 2025 to examine how these two factors jointly influence online news consumption and satisfaction patterns. Findings show that personality shapes information needs and content preferences: extraverts prefer socially shared, audiovisual and interactive formats, whereas introverts prefer deep, text-rich and distraction-free content. Similarly, postgraduate users prefer long-form, data-driven and multi-source reporting, while undergraduate users favor concise, visually enriched and convenience-based news updates. When personality and education interact, their combined effect becomes more powerful in predicting cognitive involvement, emotional responses and loyalty to digital news platforms. The review concludes that personalization strategies that integrate both psychological and educational segmentation can enhance user satisfaction and foster sustainable reader engagement. Practical recommendations for digital publishers, implications for communication research and directions for future academic work are presented.