The Social Dilemma
Netflix
So I watched this documentary on the problematic (to put it lightly) nature of social media a couple of weeks ago and I wasn’t going to talk about it because I’m crazy bias. I think social media has become an absolute disaster for pretty much everything.
I’m not going to say it doesn’t have good sides like keeping families in touch but the bad at this point is outweighing it.
But I’ve seen a lot more discussions on the film recently. And I did find the film informative, if the dramatized parts where a little too much, but most of the discussions are about blaming the creators and companies (which cannot be blamed enough) for basically selling us.
But at this point I think we need to take individual responsibility as well.
One interesting thing was that social media, search engines, do indeed tell you what they think you want to hear. So everyone is locked in this bubble and not only that but there’s no desire on the part of people to look for the truth before spouting off on things. (Also there’s an MIT study that a lie on social media moves 6X’s as fast as the truth. And I think we’ve all seen those exchanges where you point out to someone that whatever they are spouting was disproven and they don’t believe you regardless.)
And the more we stay in our bubbles and have our beliefs reinforced the more it seems we destroy any human complexity or any nuance period. Complexity and nuance don’t do very well on social media I’ve found and no one seems to understand hypocrisy anymore. And we just start to stew in it and not only are we the most rightest people in the world whose opinions matter most but anyone who disagrees with us is not just wrong but evil, stupid and deserving of death.
The people in the documentary all of whom had big important jobs in social media don’t seem to have a lot of hope that the Ginni can be put back in the bottle. Making this honestly one of the scariest films I’ve watched in a while. Blame Zuckerberg. Blame the corporations. Blame the government. All deserve it. But until we start taking responsibility for our own actions on social media I don’t have a lot of hope for it either.
Recommend: Yes.
Social media in general is something I avoid. I have facebook purely for games I play on my Ipad, and keeping in touch with people that are far away from me. But that’s about it. I never had the urge to go full out with that in any way😊
Yeppers. This ol’ social media madness has me walking on eggshells. :-/
Couldn’t agree more! It’s easy to blame the creators or even the platforms themselves. But the onus is on us to protect our own privacy and be aware of the echo chamber.