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8 - Deciding to Consume, 2

The Case of Social Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2023

Cass R. Sunstein
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussion of the welfare effects of digital goods, including social media. A national survey, designed to monetize the benefits of a variety of social media platforms (including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram), found a massive disparity between willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA). The sheer magnitude of this disparity reflects a “superendowment effect.” Social media may be wasting time goods – goods on which people spend time, but for which they are not, on reflection, willing to pay much (if anything). It is also possible that in the context of the WTP question, people may be giving protest answers, signaling their intense opposition to being asked to pay for something that they had formerly enjoyed for free. Their answers may be expressive, rather than reflective of actual welfare effects. At the same time, the WTA measure may also be expressive, a different form of protest, telling us little about the actual effects of social media on people’s lives and experiences. It may greatly overstate those effects. In this context, there may well be a sharp disparity between conventional economic measures and actual effects on experienced well-being.

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Chapter
Information
Decisions about Decisions
Practical Reason in Ordinary Life
, pp. 144 - 158
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Deciding to Consume, 2
  • Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Decisions about Decisions
  • Online publication: 29 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009400480.009
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  • Deciding to Consume, 2
  • Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Decisions about Decisions
  • Online publication: 29 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009400480.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Deciding to Consume, 2
  • Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Decisions about Decisions
  • Online publication: 29 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009400480.009
Available formats
×