A new working paper by Hunt Allcott (New York University) and co-authors (recently covered by the New York Times) addresses this by using a randomised controlled trial - they randomly selected some of their 2844 research participants to switch off Facebook for four weeks, while others only switched off Facebook for one day. They then looked at the effects of that period on a battery of different measures of online and offline activity, news knowledge, political knowledge and views, and life satisfaction, based on a comparison of the treatment group (those that switched off Facebook for four weeks) and the control group (those that switched off Facebook for a single day). As is increasingly common, they had a pre-registered analysis plan, which limits the degrees of freedom to manipulate the analysis to achieve a preferred statistical result. So the results are fairly believable.
Allcott et al. found that:
Deactivating Facebook freed up 60 minutes per day for the average person in our Treatment group. The Treatment group actually spent less time on both non-Facebook social media and other online activities, while devoting more time to a range of offline activities such as watching television alone and spending time with friends and family. The Treatment group did not change its consumption of any other online or offline news sources and reported spending 15 percent less time consuming news...The fact that Facebook use declined is not surprising, but other online activities also declined, showing that Facebook and other online activities (including online news consumption) are complements, rather than substitutes. Moving on, they also found that:
Consistent with the reported reduction in news consumption, we find that Facebook deactivation significantly reduced news knowledge and attention to politics. The Treatment group was less likely to say they follow news about politics or the President, and less able to correctly answer factual questions about recent news events. Our overall index of news knowledge fell by 0.19 standard deviations. There is no detectable effect on political engagement, as measured by voter turnout in the midterm election and the likelihood of clicking on email links to support political causes. Deactivation significantly reduced polarization of views on policy issues and a measure of exposure to polarizing news. Deactivation did not statistically significantly reduce affective polarization (i.e. negative feelings about the other political party) or polarization in factual beliefs about current events, although the coefficient estimates also point in that direction. Our overall index of political polarization fell by 0.16 standard deviations...We might decry Facebook as a source of fake news, but it appears to also be a significant source of real news knowledge as well, as shown by the decrease in political knowledge from deactivating Facebook. To be clear, this result arises mainly because it makes people less sure about the news statements they were presented with in the survey (and asked if the statements were true, or false, or if they were unsure). As many would expect though, it appears that Facebook contributes to political polarization. Finally, in terms of happiness or life satisfaction:
Deactivation caused small but significant improvements in well-being, and in particular on self-reported happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and anxiety. Effects on subjective well-being as measured by responses to brief daily text messages are positive but not significant. Our overall index of subjective well-being improved by 0.09 standard deviations... These results are consistent with prior studies suggesting that Facebook may have adverse effects on mental health.Interestingly, these outcomes were about two-thirds smaller than the effects measured in past correlational studies (which they demonstrate in the paper). So perhaps Facebook isn't as negative for our overall wellbeing as it has been portrayed. However, it is worth noting that the participants that deactivated Facebook were also more likely to reduce their Facebook use after the experiment concluded. Allcott et al.'s results are also:
...consistent with reverse causality, for example if people who are lonely or depressed spending more time on Facebook, or with omitted variables, for example if lower socio-economic status is associated with both heavy use and lower well-being.Finally, their data allows them to estimate the consumer surplus of Facebook, which is essentially a measure of the total benefits generated by Facebook for consumers. [*] This is because they asked people how much they were willing to accept to deactivate Facebook for a month - a form of non-market valuation (they are not the first to do this, as I noted in this post last year). They estimate this consumer surplus for US consumers at US$230 billion to $365 billion per year. So despite the impacts on wellbeing, Facebook does generate a lot of value.
[HT: Marginal Revolution]
Read more:
- How much money would you accept to give up Facebook for a month?
- Does the Internet make people happier?
- The more you use Facebook, the worse you feel
- Quitting Facebook might make you happier
*****
[*] Strictly speaking, the consumer surplus is the amount that consumers would be willing to pay for the service, minus the amount that they actually pay. In this case, consumers don't pay anything for Facebook use (at least monetarily - we voluntarily give Facebook lots of our data, which may or may not be valuable to us!).
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