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The Social Dilemma: Review

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August 27, 2024
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The Social Dilemma (2020 PG-13, 84% on Rotten Tomatoes) is part documentary and part drama produced by Netflix that won two Emmys. It explores the dangerous human impact of social networking and its origins. In this documentary, the creators themselves are sounding the alarm on how social networking was purposely designed to addict the user and control them.

I have recommended this documentary to many parents. Most come away from it saying they had no idea, and that they will be making significant changes in their usage of social media and protecting their children from it.

Never before have a handful of tech designers had such control over the way billions of us think, act, and live our lives.

The Social Dilemma

Trailer

The trailer for The Social Dilemma is full of nuggets that make you want to find out more. It begins to show you the data, not the story. You see glimpses of the dramatic piece, but not much.

Review

The Social Dilemma does an excellent job of presenting how social networking came about and the psychology behind how it was built. The interviews are eye-opening, and give you a glimpse into how Silicon Valley thinks about its users. Viewers have described the film as “enlightening,” “thought provoking,” or “disturbing.”

They also discuss the three dilemmas social networking presents: 1) the Mental Health Dilemma, 2) the Democracy Dilemma, and 3) the Discrimination Dilemma. These are backed up with statistics and woven into the documentary aspect and the drama aspect.

There is not much mention about culture. Technology is technology. But how a culture adopts and applies it matters. As with all new things, you must use self-control to avoid obsession. And the solution of government regulation will not be our savior here.

A 5,000 person study found that higher social media use correlated with self-reported declines in mental and physical health and life satisfaction.

American journal of epidemiology, 2017

Dissenters

Some argue that The Social Dilemma shares very little solutions to the problem it points out. This film is not focused on solutions, but simply on sounding the alarm. Therefore, you could be left with the idea that social media is something to run and hide from, like some monster. And certainly, some people do respond to it that way.

Others call The Social Dilemma an attack on social media platforms. When you have whistleblowers who were there from the beginning saying how dangerous it is, I’d say that’s an attack. But why are they saying it? Perhaps this is because social media has grown into something much more powerful and farther reaching than it was originally intended.

An argument can be made that the dramatic presentation in this film is unnecessary. And perhaps that is true, since it does not lend anything else to this film. It appears to be an emotional hook through a different presentation than the data, factual evidence and statistics.

You are not controlled by something that you guard against being controlled by. Use discretion in how much time you use social media. Don’t believe something just because you saw it while doom scrolling. Connect with others face to face more than online.

We use social networks to connect with others. We DON’T do a good job of disconnecting from the technology when we need to, or filtering what we see there.

This documentary from Jeff Orlowski explores how addiction and privacy breaches are features, not bugs, of social media platforms.

The New York Times

Whether you appreciate this documentary for sounding the alarm, or dislike its limitations, you will at least gain information to make better informed decisions. Your interpretation of the information matters.

Related: How Parents Judge Their Success

If you would like to talk one of our counselors about how social media is affecting your children or your parenting, call us today.

Todd Call
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