Dystopia Is Just a Tweet, Like or Tag Away
Matthew Sherwood is the host of Factual America, a podcast that examines the US through the lens of documentary filmmaking. Every week Matthew interviews documentary filmmakers as well as experts on the American experience.
The Social Dilemma (2020) by Jeff Orlowski: 7.2/10
The Social Dilemma (2020), Netflix’s latest doc of the moment, not only paints a pessimistic picture of social media but puts the blame for many of society’s ills squarely at the feet of the tech giants. But are we all truly unwitting victims of so-called “surveillance capitalism”?
For those who have been living under a proverbial rock, Social Dilemma seemingly has most of us desperately reaching for our smart devices, but this time to delete our social media apps. Reviews have described the film as “the most important documentary of our times” and a “wake-up call”. You get the picture. It’s no wonder then that the film is on course to be the first doc to top Netflix’s monthly charts.
Concerns about social media are not new, of course. The ill effects on our mental health of staring at our screens for hours on end are well-documented, especially in academic circles. How many of us are truly unaware that we are wanted by marketers for our personal likes and dislikes, which we willingly give up every time we log on to our favourite platform? As we are told by one of the many talking heads in the film, “if you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product”. A key quote in a film full of them.
Probably for the first time on camera, a veritable parade of industry insiders – former CEOs, developers, venture capitalists and engineers – discuss how they created a business model that involves using us as guinea pigs in behavioural experiments. It turns out it is not our data that advertisers want to buy after all but the ability to manipulate and predict our behaviour.
Jeff Orlowski – the director of award-winning climate change scarefests Chasing Ice (2012) and Chasing Coral (2017) – skilfully weaves on-camera interviews decrying the ills of modern-day Silicon Valley with highly entertaining dramatisations showing how social media is destroying the 21st-century American family. A highlight is Vincent Kartheiser's personification of a three-headed algorithm, which deftly demonstrates how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning not only drive social media platforms but also influence and control our lives. The fictional family at the heart of the dramatisation, however, comes off as overwrought and frankly a bit cheesy.
At its best, Social Dilemma fits in nicely with a long body of literature – going all the way back to at least Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – that looks at how science and technology are affecting us as human beings. Which is why the film’s assertion that this time is completely different rings a bit hollow. At one point Tristan Harris, former industry insider and one of the film’s stars, contrasts social media with the invention of the bicycle, whereas television seems the more fitting and intellectually honest comparison. Even so, the doc is a worthy heir to Neil Postman’s seminal book Amusing Ourselves to Death.
At the same time, in a world where we have created comfortable echo-chambers for ourselves with the help of social media, Social Dilemma itself never gives us more than one side of the story. Do not hold your breath waiting for an opposing view or vision of the future. That said, the film documents exceptionally well how social media is supplementing long-standing societal trends: the rise of fake news and the polarisation of society, just to name two.
Early on in the film, as we gaze at nefarious looking puppeteer hands pulling our collective social media strings, Harris voices over that “never before in history have 50 designers – 20- to 35-year-old white guys in California – made decisions that would have an impact on two billion people. Two billion people will have thoughts that they didn’t intend to have because a designer at Google said ‘This is how notifications work on that screen that you wake up to in the morning.’”
Nor are the engineers and designers themselves immune. In one revealing segment industry insiders discuss their social media addictions. With depression, anxiety and even suicides skyrocketing among teenagers and pre-teens since 2010, is it any wonder that many in Silicon Valley strictly limit screentime for their children or even prohibit smartphones altogether?
In the end, The Social Dilemma leaves us thinking there is a part of the story that has been left out. As individuals with freedom of thought, is it not within ourselves to resist being told how to think? Don’t we have a choice? Surely we can just put the phone down or turn it off. But that seems to be the problem. Most of us can’t.
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