I just finished watching Jeff Orlowski's "The Social Dilemma" now playing on Netflix.
I should have known, (I do teach a class on Social Media) and I guess I did know. In the class, we talk about our tech addictions, which platforms, what we can do about them. We read Andrew Sullivan's seminal, early work on the topic ("I Used to Be a Human Being"), and we work on creation of content that promotes social good. I did know that a few young, white boys in Silicon Valley used a convergence of persuasion technology, psychology, algorithms, and ruthlessness to create addictive design.
"If the product is free, then you are the product."
Your data is the product, your Pavlovian responses are the goal - ruthlessly applied so that they make money on every click.
After watching the movie, I turned off notifications everywhere; deleted FaceBook on everything but one laptop; deleted Twitter everywhere (I'll use the web), and I promised myself not to post anything political when feeling frustrated by the noise/news of the day. Political posts from me sway no one; I'll leave it to experts to do the research and their journalistic jobs.
I deleted Instagram ages ago. Never understood the appeal of Pinterest - given my home looks like a summer camp, perhaps that's not surprising.
Watch the movie. The very men who created social media explain the damage they've done. Political polarization, echo chamber connections, trolling, teenage bullying and the loss of self-esteem - including self-harm and suicides, conspiracy theories and rising movements of hate, Russian interference and manipulation of elections and lives. All of it, as these men intentionally conditioned us to go deeper into the rabbit hole, to lose track of time, to seek ever more unsatisfying digital validation, to alter ourselves with endless selfies and selfie-filters, and more and worse and never-ending and no solution in sight to put this evil genie back in the bottle. (PS: they're sorry. Oops.)
No solution, except for each of us to recognize the harm, pull ourselves out, and advocate for regulation.
Watch the movie. Save yourself and each other.
4 comments:
Shortly before I watched The Social Dilemma, both for this class and another, I posted on Facebook, "I wasn't planning on watching it all. Has anyone watched it? Thoughts?" I only received 11 comments. I had a long-time friend that is now a teacher say she hadn't watched it yet, but planned to. A lot of people said it was pretty good, an eye opener. One friend said she cried because she has teenage daughters. One interesting post, " Although, I think there are some good points, I have an open mind as to why they might release such a documentary at this time." I assume this friend is hinting at the election year. Keep in mind I have around 800 Facebook friends. Young, old, family, military, government workers, teachers, entrepreneurs, and only 11 comments. I think most people are like me, didn't want to watch it, because what if the documentary unleashes a truth that you can never forget. What if I am addicted to my phone and social media and what if I am teaching this to my children? They all have tablets. They all watch YouTube kids. I grew up in the 90s/2000s and the best we had was dial up AOL and even then there were dangers.
Overall, the movie was an eye opener and nicely done. Most alarming, was when the young girl broke the cookie jar to get her phone out after only a few minutes. Finally, one comment on my post said, "Simple answer to a big problem. Shit can your mobile phone and go back to dial up phones. Problem solved." Granted this previous coworker is approaching 60. I wonder if a 22 year old college student would say the same?
We can't put the genie back in the bottle. Our habits and mindless addictions are what we need to change. Baby steps: my phone no longer charges in the bedroom, and I've taken FB and Twitter off of everything but my laptop since watching the movie. I still go down the rabbit hole, but not constantly.
I do hurt for young people. I'm hoping I can rewire my brain because these habits are new. What happens when your whole life has been ignoring all around you and staring at a tiny screen? And the screen does not have your interests at heart?
What happens to all of us as a society if we don't stop this runaway train?
After watching The Social Dilemma, I started thinking how social media has built their own Government model without us even knowing that. What I meant by that, there are so many things that are going on in our democracy and we don't understand, yet we still follow it because of how safe democracy feels. Sometime we take things out of context, like freedom of speech. A lot of people think just because they have the right to say what's on their mind, it is okay to hurt others feelings. In the video the co-inviter of Facebook like button states that Facebook was created to connect people all over the world not to damage it. Big companies saw this as an opportunity and used Facebook for their advantage. It's sad that we have to pay tuition to open our eyes to things like this. Some people might argue; it is available on Netflix everyone can watch it. However, how much do you have to pay a month and how fun is it for a teenager to watch a documentary like this on their own?
I've had friends tell me that they are choosing not to watch the film, as they feel that they know the dangers, don't want to confront them. Truly, what do you do if you're a parent watching your teenage daughter be hurt and damaged by herd cruelty? What do you do if your child is participating in the cruelty? Easier to "not know."
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