Back to History

Fields Changed

Registration

Field Before After
Study Withdrawn No
Intervention Completion Date May 01, 2017
Data Collection Complete Yes
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) 167 individuals
Was attrition correlated with treatment status? No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations 167 individuals
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms 90 individuals treatment; 77 individuals control
Is there a restricted access data set available on request? No
Program Files No
Data Collection Completion Date May 01, 2017
Is data available for public use? No
Back to top

Papers

Field Before After
Paper Abstract Social media permeates many aspects of our lives, including how we connect with others, where we get our news and how we spend our time. Yet, we know little about the economic effects for users. In 2017, we ran a large field experiment with over 1765 individuals to document the value of Facebook to users and its causal effect on news, well-being and daily activities. Participants reveal how much they value one week of Facebook usage and are then randomly assigned to a validated Facebook restriction or normal use. One week of Facebook is worth $67. Those who are off Facebook for one week reduce news consumption, are less likely to recognize politically-skewed news stories, report being less depressed and engage in healthier activities. These results are strongest for men. Our results further suggest that, after the restriction, Facebook’s value increases, consistent with information loss or that using Facebook may be addictive.
Paper Citation Mosquera, R., Odunowo, M., McNamara, T., Guo, X., & Petrie, R. (2020). The economic effects of Facebook. Experimental Economics, 23, 575-602.
Paper URL https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10683-019-09625-y
Back to top