Social Media Addiction: Adding Insult to Injury

Social Media Addiction: Adding Insult to Injury

Host Kirsten Martin is joined by Vikram Bhargava, an assistant professor of strategic management and public policy at the George Washington University School of Business. His research focuses on technology addiction, mass social media outrage, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, the future of work, and other topics related to digital technology policy. Vik came on the show to talk about a paper he recently coauthored with Manuel Velasquez of Santa Clara University titled “Ethics of the Attention Economy: The Problem of Social Media Addiction,” which appeared in Business Ethics Quarterly. In it, they “argue that addicting users to social media is impermissible because it unjustifiably harms users in a way that is both demeaning and objectionably exploitative.” Vik talked with Kirsten about how social media addiction raises ethical issues we haven’t seen before with other types of addictive products, using his morning cup of coffee to illustrate the distinction and what in the paper he and Velasquez call the “adding insult to injury argument.” Vik also discussed how the picture is further complicated by the fact that a social media account is routinely the most straightforward way to access certain social goods—e.g., job search websites—and his ideas on possible ways forward given that social media does provide benefits to society, as well.

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Presented by Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center

Additional Resources

Presented by Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center

Article Discussed in the Episode: “Ethics of the Attention Economy: The Problem of Social Media Addiction”

Vikram Bhargava’s Bio

Episode Transcript

At the end of each episode, Kirsten asks for a recommendation about another scholar in tech ethics whose work our guest is particularly excited about. Vik highlighted Dartmouth’s Sonu Bedi, specifically his research on race-based filters in dating app algorithms.

More on Sonu Bedi

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