American Economic Review Vol. 110 No. 3 2020

The Welfare Effects of Social Media

Hunt Allcott¹; Luca Braghieri²; Sarah Eichmeyer²; Matthew Gentzkow³

¹ New York University, and NBER (email: ) · ² Stanford University (email: ) · ³ Stanford University and NBER (email: )

Abstract

The rise of social media has provoked both optimism about potential societal benefits and concern about harms such as addiction, depression, and political polarization. In a randomized experiment, we find that deactivating Facebook for the four weeks before the 2018 US midterm election (i) reduced online activity, while increasing offline activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with family and friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-being; and post-experiment Facebook use. Deactivation reduced post-experiment valuations of Facebook, suggesting that traditional metrics may overstate consumer surplus.

DOI

10.1257/aer.20190658

Volume

110

Issue

3

Pages

629-676

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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