“The Social Dilemma” documentary, released on Netflix in 2020, examines the negative effects of social media and the role that various platforms and tech companies are playing in contributing to social media addiction and political polarization. The documentary featured interviews and commentary from staff that had previously worked for various tech companies including Google, Facebook and Instagram. Many of these staff members ended up leaving their jobs over ethical concerns over the future of big tech. The documentary looked at the hard truths of the industry and how human behavior and habits have been negatively influenced by technology. 

Tech firms have been under more scrutiny recently as technology has become more advanced and has even taken a life of its own, and I don’t think anyone could have predicted the effects that it would have. Many of the interviewees mentioned that there is a lack of awareness and care for thinking about the overarching consequences of today’s technology and social media. In my journalism senior seminar, we are learning about the work and ideas of people like Noam Chomsky, one of the most famous writers and linguists and the author of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Chomsky argues something similar to the people in the documentary, in that the media is focused on profit, and the big corporations are selling what they want to the public and advertisers are paying for access to audiences. Although this work was written in 1988, many of Chomsky’s criticisms are similar to the ones today as the companies in Silicon Valley sell their users as the product to advertisers. And for most of these companies, the majority of people creating features and algorithms for two billion people to use are white men. Jaron Lanier, one of the experts, said “if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product.”

The goal of these tech companies is to create business models to keep people engaged on their screens for long periods of time, which will in turn create even more profit for the companies. In addition to the business models, social media sites rely heavily on tracking, recording and measuring data to ensure that each person has an individually tailored experience. The documentary brought up the interesting comparison to magicians, who understand the mind and the psychology of what persuades people to manipulate them for entertainment. Tech companies act in a similar way, in that they exploit vulnerabilities in human psychology to get people addicted. This is a huge concern, especially for Generation Z and Gen Alpha and the amount of technology and social media usage they record daily. The documentary follows an example family and the mental health and body image issues and the increased rates of suicide and self-harm that result from constantly comparing yourself to others on social media. These platforms’ main goal is not to protect or nurture children, but instead to develop algorithms that are going to recommend the next best video or belief that children should follow. Followed up by statistics, this is an incredibly dangerous concern that will only continue to worsen as the new generations won’t know anything else besides this new technology and social media platforms at an incredibly young age. 

The documentary then looks at the political aspect of technology and the increased polarization effects. Computer processing power has gone up a trillion times since the 1960s, but our human brains haven’t evolved at all, meaning that we are continuing to fall behind and succumb to what this technology is telling us. Today’s algorithms are leading to more polarization as they are selling our attention to advertisers, who in turn give us the information that we should believe. The conspiracy theories that “the earth is flat,” “Pizzagate,” and that “Covid-19 was caused by 5g” are recommended to people on sites like Facebook and lead people down rabbit holes which make them unable to see any other point of view. The documentary included the interesting statistic that fake news spreads six times faster than true news, and these platforms are profiting off this information. This disinformation has led to violent protests and incredibly dangerous fake news. “Democracy is facing a crisis of confidence,” and it will only continue to worsen if these platforms continue working in their own self-interest. 

The documentary ends with various former tech industry workers and authors recommending the next steps of action in combatting these issues. It is not necessarily the consumer’s fault and instead the platforms need to be accountable for their actions. I thought it was interesting when Tristan Harris, a major actor in the documentary, said technology today was simultaneously a utopia and dystopia. We can do incredible things with today’s technology that has made life and communication much easier. But the dystopian aspect of it is threatening society. These platforms are currently wrapped up in a business model that is created through shareholder pressure and economic incentives, which makes it difficult to change. The platforms don’t have any real responsibility or incentive to change their ways so there need to be specific regulations to combat this model that prioritizes profit and power. The documentary ends on a more positive note though, saying this is “our social dilemma” and we can make small changes ourselves by monitoring and reclaiming our own technology use and standing up to these big tech companies. How much longer can we let these issues continue to persist? Will tech companies actually make a change or is it fully up to the consumer? This documentary presents some alarming and worrying information but at the same time, it is important that people are realizing what the current corporate interests are, and this is a good wake-up call in creating change.