فراوانی و وفور نعمت فن آوری و بهزیستی ذهنی

Abstract This study measures the welfare effects of technological goods using a recent European pooled cross-sectional dataset. We find that fixed and mobile phones, music players and personal computers, including those with an Internet connection, are associated with significantly higher levels of well-being measured by individual self-reported life satisfaction. Further controlling for mobile and broadband country penetration levels, we provide evidence suggesting that the latter matters for life satisfaction, especially for the users who already possess the relevant devices. Keeping life satisfaction constant, we subsequently derive substantial GDP per capita estimates equivalent to a 10 percentage point increase in broadband and mobile phone penetration.

Introduction Technology is now an integral part of everyday life. While the economic dimensions of technological amenities have been studied extensively, the literature has largely neglected the individual welfare effects from their existence or lack thereof. Not long ago, before the invention of the television, being able to watch movies or other programmes through a simple device in your living-room was considered absurd, even more so being able to make and receive calls via a wireless device from wherever one may be, or ‘surf’ the internet. Following Scanlon (1993) we study whether an individual’s well-being is enhanced due to the ownership of such technological amenities, which in this setting can be viewed as substantive goods. Scanlon himself purposefully avoids determining the characteristics of such a good, which is defined as anything that humans desire and are given to be ‘good things’. Thus, a substantive good is “anything that makes people’s lives go better” given their own or other people’s perceptions and experiences (Harsanyi, 1997). In addition, the purchase and ownership of technological amenities may be mirroring a desired status effect for the individual, as noted by Veblen (1899). Given some of the inadequacies of revealed preferences and contingent valuation methods (Luechinger & Raschky, 2009), we use cross-national individual life satisfaction data obtained from the Eurobarometer over the period 2005–2008 and relate it to the ownership of several technological appliances. These include televisions, digital videodiscs, compact disk players, personal computers, internet connections, fixed and mobile phones. Besides this level of comparative ownership, several network technological products and services are related to their stock and usage in each country. Mobile and fixed phones are useful if each person’s peers own a device, whereas a television set is unrelated to this phenomenon. Analog or digital fixed internet access is also related to the overall country penetration that allows for tele-work, e-banking and e-shopping activities, among others. We thus additionally incorporate controls for network amenities and draw inferences on the well-being effects of increased participation. By focusing on the under-researched link between increased participation in digital networks and subjective well-being (SWB), we find a significantly higher degree of life satisfaction for individuals who possess relevant amenities and reside in countries with higher penetration rates (i.e. digital network participation in a country). We further estimate that the GDPC equivalent of a 10 percentage point increase in mobile and broadband penetration on SWB is 2.36% and 2.89%, respectively. By further computing the annual broadband subscription costs incurred by the average consumer as a percentage of GDP per capita, we find a welfare surplus calculated as the differential between the implied monetised benefits and actual costs. The results pose some interesting links that may directly or indirectly affect public policy debates on net neutrality and the European Parliament’s acknowledgment of internet access as a fundamental right. 1 The remaining of this study is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces the key literature related to the economic impact of technology together with an overview on the economics of SWB. Section 3 describes our data and the econometric methodology. Section 4 presents the results of our model. Section 5 offers some discussion on the implications of our results, policy impacts and limitations. Section 6 concludes

Conclusion Following the widespread use of technological devices, this study measures the welfare implications of ownership of technological goods and the intangible impact of mobile and broadband networks to subscribers using a recent pooled cross-sectional dataset for 29 European countries. Using self-reported life satisfaction as a measure of well-being we find that ownership of a fixed phone, a mobile phone, a compact disk player, a computer and an internet connection are all associated with significantly higher levels of subjective well-being. Interestingly, the estimated coefficient for mobile phones is larger than that for fixed phones. Along the same lines, adding an internet connection increases the estimated coefficient for personal computers by 50%. We further find the partial correlation between LS and television sets not to be statistically significant; the addition of a DVD device does not alter this finding. Additional estimations control for the infrastructure of mobile and internet networks at the country-year level by incorporating measures of mobile and broadband penetration. We find these measures to significantly affect subjective well-being and, more specifically, we show that the individuals affected the most are the ones who already possess the relevant amenities. We proceed by carrying out several accounting exercises. Using the estimated coefficients of our life satisfaction models, we calculate the GDPC equivalent of a 10 percentage point increase in mobile and broadband penetrations. We find that the increase in mobile adoption has a significant though lesser effect (approximately 2.36%), given the existing saturation of the mobile network. However, this is not the case for broadband, where we find that a 10 percentage point rise in broadband adoption has a higher effect (2.89%). By further computing the annual broadband subscription costs incurred by the average consumer in a selection of countries as a percentage of GDP per capita, we find a welfare surplus calculated as the differential between implied monetised benefits and actual costs. One should however be cautious in generalizing the welfare associations estimated in the present study when considering other technologies and countries. Future contributions in this area will shed more light in some interesting relationships, such as the difference between ownership and frequency of use of some of the technologies discussed. Panel analyses will further be able to empirically determine causal links. The literature will also benefit from future studies looking at the associations linked to specific variants within each of the goods studies here (e.g. laptop vs. desktop computers). To this extent, the possibility that the number and frequency of meeting friends or popularity of the individual might be causing the underlying relationship between life satisfaction and some of the technological amenities especially mobile phones and internet connections should be looked in more detail.