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Showing posts with the label social media

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

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  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra
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Real Life Economics: Big Tech and Network Effects

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  In a few recent posts the increasing power of Big Tech and the possible consequences of the same were discussed. There is an increasing tendency of over reach by the Big Tech and thus has potential impact on the socio-economic-politic equilibrium of the society or the country. Their over reach was manifested in the US elections of late and has been in some ways manifesting itself in the Indian context too.   It would not erroneous to assume Big Tech is growing too big for their shoes and the states need to curb them. The roots of this power perhaps can be traced to early 2000s when Bill Clinton administration compromised with Microsoft in the anti-trust suits thus ensuring Microsoft was not split. Given the more than generous help given by the Big Tech in their campaign, President Biden is unlikely to go hard on them. In fact, this might embolden them to scale in their experiments in different countries. However a question at this stage would be what gives them the power to dictate t
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Social Media, Alternate Reality and Real Life Conversations

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  The post “ Deciphering the Social Media Ranting ” discussed the possible reasons why people rant on social media especially Twitter. The post used the theory of signalling in economics to explain why people rant about each and everything to get noticed. A simple post might not attract attention but continuous rants and slogan shouting would perhaps enable them to get noticed, get followers and perhaps at some point achieve a sort of celebrity status. It is just not mere ranting but the way people form opinions and sort to push their opinion that would be of interest. Often, it is made to believe that the opinion of the social media becomes the opinion of the people. It is made to believe that the social media represents the cross section of the people and thus appropriate sample of the views of the population at large. It is made to believe that the mood of the country or the society is best reflected through perusal of the views being expressed through the social media and other con
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Deciphering the Social Media Ranting

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Social media is synonymous with ranting. The rants might not have any reasons but to many a rant a day is conceivably the only way to keep a doctor away or so as the adage goes. The social media indubitably has turned the nature of conversation upside down. Expertize in the pre-internet days stemmed from the ability to have their byline in a newspaper or a magazine or a bit of presence in the news television or radio. Given the supply demand dynamics of the media, it was not possible for many to have their views aired or published so as to become celebrities. This however did not stop people from getting published under Letters to the Editor column in many newspapers and newsmagazines. Moreover, the townsquare was ubiquitous for the celebrities in the community to hold fort on topics all and sundry. The social media with its arrival and subsequent expansion changed the dynamics.   The vertical ‘raja-praja’ hierarchy was dismantled with the horizontalization of information flow. Pla
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Wiki'nomics', Narrative Contestations and Indic Ecosystem

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Wikipedia monopolizes the online encyclopedia segment for all practical purposes. To an individual, the first link from Google Search results invariably points towards a Wikipedia entry. Given its usual spot in the top 10 Google search results, Wikipedia usually occupies a top of mind recall for many people. Their first source of knowledge ingraining is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not merely a crowd-sourced encyclopedia but has emerged as authoritative repository of knowledge. With passage of time, Wikipedia is expanding into non English languages too. Even in the context of Indic languages, Wikipedia might emerge as leading information production and dissemination contrary to expectations. Implied is the current and the future generation at least in the immediate future would get their information from Wikipedia. Therefore information as existing on Wikipedia in all likelihood will be treated as truth and even more so as it spreads in the regional languages. Despite no apparent cen
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Twitter, Facebook and Productivity: Are they Mutually Exclusive?

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Employees would desire access to social networking sites at work places. Employers feel it as an unnecessary distraction. How do we reconcile the two?   In 2009, Nucleus Research estimated a loss of 1.5% to firms’ productivity thanks to online social networking usage. Similarly in 2010, a British research firm estimated the loss to British firms at $2.2 billion per year. This implies a trade off happens between the firm’s decision to allow employees to access social networking sites at work and the productivity of the employees. However a contrary view too exists. Writing in Wired (February 2010; www.wired .com), Brendan Koerner argues otherwise.   He feels they are essential to enhance creativity and stoke a creative mind. He feels the studies that argue the loss of productivity ignore the impact of the creative process. With the human body unstructured to maintain a constant focus on assigned tasks, periodic breaks relieve the conscious minds of the pressure to perform. This e
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