A Model of Harmful Yet Engaging Content on Social Media

George Beknazar-Yuzbashev, Rafael Jiménez-Durán and Mateusz Stalinski

AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2024, vol. 114, 678-83

Abstract: Why do social media users spend so much time consuming content that seemingly harms them? We build a simple model to argue that advertising-driven platforms can find it profitable to display content that harms users when it is complementary to their time spent on the platform. These incentives disappear, absent network effects, in the case of a subscription-based business model because harmful content reduces the willingness to pay for the platform. Our results warn against interpreting increases in engagement on social media as welfare increases.

JEL-codes: D91 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20241004 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E201446V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20241004.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20241004.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:apandp:v:114:y:2024:p:678-83

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html

DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20241004

Access Statistics for this article

AEA Papers and Proceedings is currently edited by William Johnson and Kelly Markel

More articles in AEA Papers and Proceedings from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().