How much is social media worth? Estimating the value of Facebook by paying users to stop using it

Facebook, the online social network, has more than 2 billion global users. Because those users do not pay for the service, its benefits are hard to measure. We report the results of a series of three non-hypothetical auction experiments where winners are paid to deactivate their Facebook accounts fo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 13; no. 12; p. e0207101
Main Authors: Corrigan, Jay R, Alhabash, Saleem, Rousu, Matthew, Cash, Sean B
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 19-12-2018
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
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Summary:Facebook, the online social network, has more than 2 billion global users. Because those users do not pay for the service, its benefits are hard to measure. We report the results of a series of three non-hypothetical auction experiments where winners are paid to deactivate their Facebook accounts for up to one year. Though the populations sampled and the auction design differ across the experiments, we consistently find the average Facebook user would require more than $1000 to deactivate their account for one year. While the measurable impact Facebook and other free online services have on the economy may be small, our results show that the benefits these services provide for their users are large.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0207101