Many have already seen the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” and the hype has passed. It was a trending topic for months when it gained traction in viewership but is now barely mentioned as an important topic in 2021. Last year it was the talk of the town and raised many eye brows considering the important and frightening information people were hearing and seeing for the first time.
One of the most important scenes to me is the Zuckerberg trials. I remember watching the questioning of Mark Zuckerberg several years ago by congress. I remember being annoyed and trouble by the lack of understanding leading politicians had on how technology works. One major question that struck a cord with me is when one representative asked Zuckerberg how Facebook is such a profitable company when its service is free…. Yes… a representative of a large group of people, voted into office, to make wise decisions for his people asked how a free app / website makes money. If you ask any 12 year old in 2021 they can give the obvious answer: ads. The Social Dilemma brought this back into light in my favorite scenes discussing those trials.
Social media as a whole distorts reality. A casual facebook scroll is no longer casual. It is a cesspool of putrid hate, bullying, agenda pushing “news” and click bait money schemes. I cant stand when I habitually open Facebook or Instagram because it is purely muscle memory to hit any app with the stupid red bubble on the icon. It is as if I have been trained to open Facebook and scroll any free moment I have… oh wait… I have been trained to do so and that in itself is a distortion of the reality of control I have over my own decisions.
It is hard to comprehend how I have been trained to mindlessly scroll a feed and how time flies without the realization of it. This is the control that artificial intelligence has created over my own will power. Now, it would be easy for me to delete the Facebook or instagram app but I can’t. The future of money making in a growing world lies within technology. How can I keep up with technology if I refuse to use one of the largest mediums for information spread — social media. Also, I study communications in grad-school and work in communications on a full time basis. As someone who is creating content daily for social media accounts, it would be silly for me to delete the apps i have to keep up with for work.
What can I do to prevent this addiction? Well iPhones allow for screen time limits in certain apps, and it would be easy for me to go and set a screen time limit on Facebook, and honestly once I finish this article I will. I think people need to be constantly reminded about the importance of the topics exposed by The Social Dilemma. Society would be better off if schools started teaching children the dangers of social media addiction just like how big tobacco was brought down in the 90’s and 00’s.
