On Suboptimal Usage of Facebook.com by College Alumni
A testable hypothesis: college graduates underuse facebook.com.
Why do I think this is true?
This past fall, Facebook initiated a new photo album feature. It's a really well designed addition to the site, with the ability to easily upload pictures and tag individual photos with the names of the people who are in them.
So, in November of 2005, I posted an album of some great pictures that I took in Morocco the previous March while on a geology field trip. We were a tight bunch in the Geo department at Princeton, and I expected many others to post their trip photos right away. But as I write this in February of 2006, no Morocco photos have been posted by others on the trip, and in fact the only photos of me on all of Facebook are the ones I posted myself.
What gives? Although I'm not a student in economics, I do have a good background in the subject, so I will postulate a bit on this situation using some simple economic principles. When someone posts photos on Facebook, value is created not just for the individual who does the posting but also for all individuals who are in the photos, and to a certain extent for the community as a whole. However, the others in a photo don't compensate the individual who does the posting. This leads to underinvestment in photo posting, and thus a suboptimal level of Facebook usage. In economic terms, there is a positive externality associated with posting photos. Since I as a photo poster don't gain much value by putting online more photos of my friends, I don't make an extra effort to post that many photos, and thus my friends don't have as many photos online as they'd probably like. In the same way, there aren't as many photos of me from Morocco as I'd like.
What would I expect to see on Facebook then? An individual mostly posting photos of him- or herself. I haven't done a systematic study, but from my limited Facebook photo browsing this seems to be true.
Other thoughts: The positive externality is more likely to lead to Facebook underinvestment for college alums. For those still in college, there are greater networking and social benefits to being active on Facebook. Thus, underinvestment is likely to be smaller for those in college and is likely to increase the longer one is out of college.
Is there a solution to this suboptimal photo posting problem? The classic solutions to positive externalities are to either privatize all the benefits or provide subsidies as encouragement, but in this case I don't see photo posting markets developing (and in general I don't think subsidies are a good idea). So maybe I should I simply pay my geology friends to put all their pictures online, or else just socially shame them until more shots of my handsome visage are posted. Some market failures simply can not stand.
Why do I think this is true?
This past fall, Facebook initiated a new photo album feature. It's a really well designed addition to the site, with the ability to easily upload pictures and tag individual photos with the names of the people who are in them.
So, in November of 2005, I posted an album of some great pictures that I took in Morocco the previous March while on a geology field trip. We were a tight bunch in the Geo department at Princeton, and I expected many others to post their trip photos right away. But as I write this in February of 2006, no Morocco photos have been posted by others on the trip, and in fact the only photos of me on all of Facebook are the ones I posted myself.
What gives? Although I'm not a student in economics, I do have a good background in the subject, so I will postulate a bit on this situation using some simple economic principles. When someone posts photos on Facebook, value is created not just for the individual who does the posting but also for all individuals who are in the photos, and to a certain extent for the community as a whole. However, the others in a photo don't compensate the individual who does the posting. This leads to underinvestment in photo posting, and thus a suboptimal level of Facebook usage. In economic terms, there is a positive externality associated with posting photos. Since I as a photo poster don't gain much value by putting online more photos of my friends, I don't make an extra effort to post that many photos, and thus my friends don't have as many photos online as they'd probably like. In the same way, there aren't as many photos of me from Morocco as I'd like.
What would I expect to see on Facebook then? An individual mostly posting photos of him- or herself. I haven't done a systematic study, but from my limited Facebook photo browsing this seems to be true.
Other thoughts: The positive externality is more likely to lead to Facebook underinvestment for college alums. For those still in college, there are greater networking and social benefits to being active on Facebook. Thus, underinvestment is likely to be smaller for those in college and is likely to increase the longer one is out of college.
Is there a solution to this suboptimal photo posting problem? The classic solutions to positive externalities are to either privatize all the benefits or provide subsidies as encouragement, but in this case I don't see photo posting markets developing (and in general I don't think subsidies are a good idea). So maybe I should I simply pay my geology friends to put all their pictures online, or else just socially shame them until more shots of my handsome visage are posted. Some market failures simply can not stand.
posted by John V at 12:55 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home