Social Media Has Real Value: Facebook Users Place $1000 Price On Closing Their Account For One Year

According to a study published by researchers at the Tufts University (USA), a user would have to spend around $1000 (~Rs 70,000) to deactivate his Facebook (FB) account for one year, reports The Tribune.

The study, whose results were published in the journal PLOS ONE, was the result of a collaboration between three economists and a social media researcher. They combined their work and expertise to gauge the value of each user to Facebook.

The researchers conducted a series of auctions, in which users were financially compensated to close their FB accounts for varying periods of time. “Auction participants faced real financial consequences, so had an incentive to seriously consider what compensation they would want to close their accounts for a set period of time and to bid truthfully,” said author Sean B. Cash, one of the authors of the study.

This methodology to ascertain the value of Facebook to a user ($1000) was different from the usually applied frameworks which determine the value on the basis of the company’s market value or its contribution to the national gross domestic product (GDP).

Contrasting the popular notion that Facebook and other social media sites are harmful or do not offer real value to users, Professor Jay Corrigan noted: “We know people must derive tremendous value from Facebook or they wouldn’t spend millions of hours on the site every day. The challenge is how to put a dollar value on a service people don’t pay for.”

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