The Social Dilemma: Can We Reclaim Control?
A few weeks ago in a conversation with friends I brought up a conspiracy theory that I understood, since it was all over my Instagram feed, to be common knowledge. But my friends had no idea what I was talking about. And then I remembered what we learned in the Social Dilemma — that social media will feed us content based on our clicks. Watch one conspiracy video too many in an attempt to make sense of all the madness in the world, and then suddenly Michelle Obama is a man, Finland doesn’t exist, and the world is being run by a family of cannibalistic reptilians.
Lean ever-so slightly to the right, and the left fades entirely from view. And vice versa.
This is exactly what social media has done and continues to do when it comes to social and political opinion — it infiltrates the neutral space where healthy debate is accommodated, education is nurtured, and friends can agree to disagree. And it replaces it with a system of complete polarization, where people are fighting their granny’s for the last word in a debate about a matter that doesn’t concern them.
Because the reality of it is that social unrest naturally drives an emotional response. And when that emotional response is given a global & very public online platform where conflicting opinions inevitably exist, the result cannot be anything but polarization. As long as we are being presented with different “realities” to the people around us, we are being driven further and further apart. It’s happening with COVID-19. It’s happening in the fight for justice and equality. It’s happening during all the sensitive times in which we would benefit immensely from instead, sticking together.
This leads to long hours spent in front of a blue-light screen trying everything to get our points heard, tapping and clicking and liking and sharing, or what the big tech companies like to call — Engagement. Profit. Control.
But in the end, our point is anything but heard. It’s just out there, in the virtual abyss, waiting to trigger a friend or a strangers emotional response and send them down the same rabbit hole we’ve just pulled ourselves out of.
In a way The Social Dilemma just teaches us what we already know — that WE are the product. To try and eradicate the money-making machine that is social media from our lives at this point is entirely unrealistic. But all is not lost. The documentary also teaches us that if we are aware of the beast, we can tame it. If we understand how much control it is taking from us, we can become more intentional with how we use it, and eventually, maybe, take back that control.
