The behavioural economics of social media bans
29 Jan 2027
12:00 -14:00
Times are shown in local time
Open to: All
Fadi Boustany Lecture Theatre (Cambridge Judge Business School)
Trumpington St
Cambridge
CB2 1AG
United Kingdom
Join our Behavioural Economics and Policy event with Professor Cass R Sunstein
Three empirical studies cast new light on the question whether social media use improves people’s lives. The first study finds that people are willing to pay far less to use social media platforms than they would demand to stop using them. The second study finds that people lose welfare from using Facebook. They become more anxious, more depressed and less satisfied with their lives. The third study finds that while many young people would demand a significant amount of money to stop using Instagram and TikTok, they would also be willing to pay something to eliminate those platforms from their community. Social media platforms impose a ‘negative non-user externality’. This means that they impose a cost on people who do not use them. These findings relate to new evidence about goods that people buy but wish did not exist.
About the speaker
Professor Cass R Sunstein
Professor Cass R Sunstein is an Honorary Fellow of the El-Erian Institute of Behavioural Economics and Public Policy. He is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard and serves as founder and director of the Program on Behavioural Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. From 2009 to 2012, he was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Obama. He has worked with the World Health Organization and the United Nations. He served in the Biden Administration at the Department of Homeland Security, focusing on resilience against weather-related risks and on eliminating administrative burdens. In 2024, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the department’s highest civilian honour. He has written several bestselling books, including ‘Nudge’ (2017), which he co-authored with Richard Thaler. In 2025, he published ‘Manipulation’ and ‘On Liberalism’, as well as ‘Imperfect Oracle’.
About the discussant
Professor Sander van der Linden FPsyS FBPsS FAcSS
Professor of Social Psychology in Society, University of Cambridge
Director, Cambridge Social Decision-Making Laboratory
Sander van der Linden is Professor of Social Psychology in Society and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab at the University of Cambridge. A leading expert on misinformation, Sander has published more than 200 research papers. His work has been featured by major media outlets including The New York Times, BBC, and CBS 60 Minutes.
He is the author of the award-winning Foolproof: why we fall for misinformation and how to build immunity (2023), and of The Psychology of Misinformation (2024), a Cambridge University Press Book of the Year. He is a Fellow of several learned societies and has received numerous honours for his research and public impact. Before joining Cambridge, he held academic positions at Princeton, Yale, and the London School of Economics.
The event will be introduced and moderated by an EEI Research Associate.
Agenda
12:00 – 12:30
Networking and light lunch
Cambridge Judge Business School atrium
12:30 – 12:40
Greetings and Introduction
12:40 – 13:30
Talk by Professor Cass R Sunstein
13:30 – 13:40
Discussion with Professor Cass R Sunstein and Professor Sander van der Linden
13:45-14:00
Q&A with the audience
14:00
Close
Register
No registration required. If you have any questions about this seminar, please email Annabel Elad.