Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T18:13:58.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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
Get access

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.

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • 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 Dropbox

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 Dropbox.

  • 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
×