Required viewing - The Social Dilemma
Most courses in high school and college have their “required reading” in their course syllabi. In our contemporary society we might adapt this “required reading” label to “required viewing” for movies, TV episodes, videos, and “required listening” for podcasts and audio shows.
A documentary which should be required viewing for all well educated people in the 21st century is The Social Dilemma.
Set in the dark underbelly of Silicon Valley, "The Social Dilemma" fuses investigative documentary with enlightening narrative drama. Expert testimony from tech whistle-blowers exposes our disturbing predicament: the services Big Tech provides--search engines, networks, instant information, etc.--are merely the candy that lures us to bite. Once we're hooked and coming back for more, the real commodity they sell is their prowess to influence and manipulate us.—Sundance Film Festival
The frightening idea from this documentary is how social media and search engines use our usage data to develop algorithms to feed us more stuff the AI thinks we are likely to engage with by giving our attention to that so the media platform can then sell our attention to advertisers.
Are you aware that to social media companies your attention is being monetized and sold to the highest bidder?
Are you aware of how you are being manipulated by clicking the “like” button and even the link to the site?
Are you aware of how the computer programming engineers and AI are modifying software to engage and retain your attention to generate profit for themselves by selling your attention to third parties?
Do you wonder what factors contribute to the increasing polarization in our society, and the rise of belief in disinformation?
Do you wonder whatever became of truth. Why do we fight over who’s right instead of what’s right?
The Social Dilemma explains how social media contributes to a deterioration in mental health, contributes to polarization and disintegration of democratic processes in our modern societies, and to an increase in beliefs in conspiracy theories and lies.
Learning how social media works and its negative consequences on individuals, families, and societies might lead a thoughtful person to wonder how to manage this social problem?
The quickest and easiest answer is to eliminate or minimize one’s use of social media and search engines fueled by algorithms.
Another strategy is to deal with people directly by talking to them in person or at least on the phone. We need to move back to the analog from the digital to restore our human connectedness.
What ideas do you have about how to mitigate the negative consequences of virtual reality?