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Measuring Long-Term Causal Impact of Ads on LinkedIn Users
- awinter-py 7y agosee also a similar paper from google about long term user satisfaction, ad blindness, and short term metrics that predict long term ones https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/43887.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c...
- gwern 7y agoHere's a discussion of all the papers I know measuring the causal impact of ads: https://www.gwern.net/Ads#replication https://www.gwern.net/Ads#replication
- ronilan 7y agoI’d like to see a study Measuring Long-Term Casual Impact of LinkedIn recruiter activity on LinkedIn users.
- floatingatoll 7y agov2 is zero bytes, but v1 works: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03098v1 https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03098v1 This preprint paper contains no indication of participation by an Ethical Review Board and lists 5 @linked.com email addresses as the sole authors. How is this study ethically responsible?
- londons_explore 7y agoWhat ethical concerns do you see?
- floatingatoll 7y agoThey’re studying the long-term perceptual impact of advertising on test subjects who did not authorize being participants in this experiment. That goes far beyond “is our advertising effective?” and instead verges on “how does our advertising permanently affect human behavior?”. I don’t trust LinkedIn to act ethically in such a regard. Do you?
- cameronbrown 7y agoThose questions are flip sides of the same coin. The problem is defining the boundaries. For example, does it count as an "experiment measuring human behaviour" to slowly roll out a new feature to see if engagement metrics change? What about A/B testing the colour of all the links on your page to see if they're clicked more?
- fwn 7y agoNot the parent, but I did not yet get the ethical problem you described in your comment. Isn't "how does [decision architecture] permanently affect human behavior" the main starting point for all scientific evaluations of user interfaces? A supermarkets behavioral experiments revealing that people permanently shift their dietary habits towards goods placed in the middle of the aisle appears to me to be structurally equal. I never worried that I can't trust the supermarket in such a regard.
- shakna 7y agoAny time you're studying how you might influence human behaviour, especially if they may be unaware that you are seeking to do so, you need to run it by an ethics board. This is something psychology has had issues with in the past, and so it's a sensitive area. Several nations also have laws governing these kinds of experiments as a result. The supermarket should be assessing whether their experiment is ethical. Increasing sales of fruit and veg is unlikely to raise any red flags, but if you drive people towards unhealthy options, then you may need to assess whether or not your study has the potential for detrimental long term effects.