In January of 2020, Netflix released the documentary film The Social Dilemma onto its platform. The film includes social media and tech experts in which they break down the dangerous consequences social media can have on society. The film includes a cast of former media workers including Tristan Harris, former Google Design Ethicist; Jeff Selbert, former Twitter Executive; Sandy Parakilas, former Facebook Operations Manager; Guillaume Chaslot, former Youtube Engineer; Tim Kendall, former Pinterest President; and many more experts who have seen how the tech industry has impacted everyday lives. While I won’t give away spoilers to the film, it breaks down how social media essentially hooks you in and never lets go by creating and showing you content based on what you look at. Social media sites time how long you look at things, and then base what to show you next on how long you spend looking at it. It’s the algorithm, and the algorithm is always shifting. This isn’t just social media, either. Search engines like Google will give each person different results even if they type in the same question. This is because Google essentially remembers things you have previously searched and gets and understanding of what you like and don’t like so it can modify your searches. As the movie points out, we now have a generation that was practically handed a piece of technology when they were born. According to center4research.org, a 2018 survey showed that 31% of youths believe that social media has an overall positive impact on their lives, while 25% believe it has an overall negative impact on their lives. However, behavioral scientists are seeing negative impacts on younger people due to social media. According to childmind.org, young
adults who spend the most time on various social media platforms including Instagram and Facebook were shown to have a significantly higher rate of people with reported depression, from 13% to 66%. This increase can have a large impact on the lives of young adults. First, it can lead to depression. According to childmind.org, because people are spending less and less time connecting with people in person and more time connecting with people electronically, it leaves people feeling emotionally dissatisfied and lonely. Second, the fear of missing out, FOMO, becomes extremely prevalent on social media because you are constantly being bombarded with photos of what your peers are doing that you could be doing as well, leading to feelings of isolation and exclusion. Lastly, we are seeing a generation of young women who have extremely low self-esteem due to the endless comparisons that people make with others on social media. Low self-esteem can also be caused by hateful or hurtful comments on one’s posts. While social media is a great tool to connect with people around the world, it is becoming a dangerous threat to its users. The Social Dilemma does an amazing job at capturing this and breaking down the how an app on your phone can change the ways you think and behave. If you have a chance, I highly recommend watching this film and maybe taking a break from the phone for a bit.