2024-03-07
42 分钟Economists have discovered an odd phenomenon: many people who use social media (even you, maybe?) wish it didn’t exist. But that doesn’t mean they can escape.
I've loved working on this paper.
The idea is very simple, yet it's not something that, you know, I've been around for a long time doing economics.
It's not something that really seems to be in the consciousness.
Ben Handel is an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.
The paper he loved working on was a collaboration with Rafael Jimenez, Christopher Roth, and Leonardo Burstein.
And what was this simple but overlooked idea?
Here is Burstein.
It is possible that when you don't consume a product, you face a big cost.
And what kind of product can be costly even if you don't consume it?
Well, consider the title of their paper, when product markets become collective traps.
And now consider one of the survey questions they asked their research subjects.
We decided to ask a very simple question, which is, would you prefer to live in a world with or without TikTok or Instagram?
Today on Freakonomics radio, is social media a trap that most of us wish we never got caught in?
That's right after the hey, let's whistle it together.
This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything.
With your host Stephen Dubner.
Leonardo Burstein teaches at the University of Chicago.
I have been focusing my research on understanding how individuals choices and main economic decisions are shaped by their social environment.
As for the idea that we're talking about today, the first time I thought.
About this idea was back in the day, maybe seven.