In early 2020, a documentary was released on Netflix, and at first I procrastinated watching it for weeks. I knew people who watched it and it totally changed their view on social media. I was scared that it would make me question everything online, and it did, for the good. This documentary doesn’t just talk about how social media has changed negatively, but it talks about how we as humans can change this… We are more profitable to a corporation if we spend our time staring at a screen, staring at an ad, instead of spending that time living our life in a rich way.
The social dilemma explores the disproportionate impact social platforms have on the way we act, and ultimately live our lives. The film analyses the underlying causes of viral conspiracy theories, teenage mental health, political polarization, misinformation (fake news) and it makes these issues urgent. As a teenager in this day and age it’s so easy to get influenced by things we see on our timeline, and it makes us want to act and look like these people who are considered ‘perfect’ in society. What someone is eating and what someone is wearing…why is it that we are so interested? Why do we compare ourselves to others we haven’t even met?
Something that was stuck in my head after watching ‘’the social dilemma’’ is the fact that fake news travels six times faster than real news on social media. That’s crazy, and scary to think about. Fake news leads to the bullying of innocent people, racist ideas, and it affects the mental health of those who believe such things. I don’t think social media was made to encourage bullying, or spread false accusations, in fact, it has reunited lost relatives and educated people on world issues. As it progressed, the use of the apps and the people behind them changed in a very negative way. Many engineers of these platforms decided to leave the companies because it questioned their morals and what was ethically correct. The same engineers are interviewed on why they think social media took such a turn for the worst.
So what are we supposed to do after watching ‘the social dilemma’? Well, obviously not everyones going to delete their social media and become totally disconnected. But, there are people who might, and there are people who will hopefully become more aware of what their phones are doing to their mental health. ‘’The fabric of a healthy society depends on us getting off this corrosive business model.’’ This is an important message that needs to be talked about more and I hope that ‘the social dilemma’ opens up conversations on how we as a humans can change the fact that we are just ‘’extractable resources to these corporations that pull our attention towards the things they want us to look at, rather than things that are most consistent with our goals, our lives and our values.’’
