Social media

Project descriptions, links to papers and presentation slides

There is a lot of diversity in how much people value a week of Facebook use

Facebook makes people depressed

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.

Link to paper

Mosquera, Roberto, Mofioluwasademi Odunowo, Trent McNamara, Xiongfei Guo and Ragan Petrie, 2020, “The Economic Effects of Facebook,” Experimental Economics, 23(2), 575-602.

People will use social pressure if they can bundle it with a gift

Friends Asking Friends via Facebook

Asking a friend to give to a cause we care about can be an effective way of raising money for charity. But, it is socially costly to ask. Are people willing to ask their friends? How does this willingness change when the ask comes with more or less social pressure, i.e. in front of an audience or in private, or when it is softened with a gift? We implement a large-scale field experiment, in partnership with an online global crowdfunding community and over 9,800 unique donors, to investigate the supply of social pressure in giving. People understand that asking a friend with more social pressure can be effective but also more costly. They are 50% less likely to ask when the ask comes with more social pressure, but 45% more likely to apply social pressure if they can bundle the ask with a gift.

Link to paper

Slides for "What motivates giving? Three things we have learned from field experiments with charity and foundation partners", 2019

Castillo, Marco, Ragan Petrie and Clarence Wardell, 2017, "Friends asking friends for charity: the importance of gifts and audience," Working paper.

Fundraising through online social networks

The importance of nuisance costs: those already logged into Facebook are more likely to ask and larger add-on donations increase asking a friend

Two main reasons why people donate to charity are that they were asked and asked by someone they care about. Charitable organizations could benefit from peer-to-peer fundraising if they were able to persuade donors to do so for them. We implement a large-scale field experiment embedded in an online global crowdfunding community's web page and over 5,500 donors. Donors are asked to share information on their donation by posting on their Facebook wall or sending a private message, with and without incentives to do so via an add-on donation ($0, $1, $5). Nuisance costs are important. Those already logged into Facebook are more than twice as likely to ask, and larger add-on donations increase asking a friend by up to 12 percentage points.

Link to paper

Castillo, Marco, Ragan Petrie and Clarence Wardell, 2014, "Fundraising through online social networks: a field experiment on peer-to-peer solicitation," Journal of Public Economics, 114, 29-35.