Publications
Publications
- 2022
- HBS Working Paper Series
The Routledge Handbook of Digital Consumption, Chapter 41: The Internet’s Effects on Consumption: Useful, Harmful, Playful
By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
Abstract
This chapter considers how digital culture has changed over the past decade, as the internet has grown its scope and user base. Billions around the world connect daily to an ever-expanding set of applications. A framework for thinking about digital effects is offered: their utility, their harms, and their capacity to reward play. In the utilitarian domain, two forces work in opposition. Five tech giants have grown their employment at thirty percent each year for the decade, while at the same time solo activity and entrepreneurship have begun to expand at a similar scale, as connectivity has shifted from being a technical consideration to a feature of everyday life. Music is explored as one instance of the cultural consequences of liberating individuals from corporate gatekeepers. At the same time, as the flow of information at scale is made frictionless and permissionless, and a business model rewards attention with advertising, bad actors have flourished over the decade. The range of motives for online activity account for its variety, among which still exist prosocial phenomena that greatly benefit consumers.
Keywords
Citation
Deighton, John A., and Leora Kornfeld. "The Routledge Handbook of Digital Consumption, Chapter 41: The Internet’s Effects on Consumption: Useful, Harmful, Playful." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-049, January 2022.