Data for: Digital Addiction

Many have argued that digital technologies such as smartphones and social media are addictive. We develop an economic model of digital addiction and estimate it using a randomized experiment. Temporary incentives to reduce social media use have persistent effects, suggesting social media are habit forming. Allowing people to set limits on their future screen time substantially reduces use, suggesting self-control problems. Additional evidence suggests people are inattentive to habit formation and partially unaware of self-control problems. Looking at these facts through the lens of our model suggests that self-control problems cause 31 percent of social media use.诸多学术研究与行业观点均指出，智能手机、社交媒体等数字技术具有成瘾属性。本研究搭建了数字成瘾的经济学分析模型，并通过随机试验（randomized experiment）对该模型开展参数估计。旨在减少社交媒体使用时长的临时性激励举措产生了持续效应，这表明社交媒体具备习惯养成特性。允许用户预先设定未来的屏幕使用时长上限，可显著降低其实际使用时长，该结果提示用户存在自我控制问题（self-control problems）。进一步的实证证据表明，用户往往对习惯养成过程缺乏关注，且有部分人群未能察觉自身存在的自我控制问题。以本研究构建的模型为视角对上述事实进行分析后可知，自我控制问题导致了31%的社交媒体使用行为。