Is The Social Dilemma really telling us the whole story?
I just watched the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, and it’s an interesting discussion on the role that social media plays in our lives. The Social Dilemma gives us some good lessons to takeaway, but there’s a lot to agree and disagree with in the very pessimistic, negative one sided view it presents.
It also misses any discussion on the positive value social media and digital platforms have provided.
The Social Dilemma could have been a great opportunity to make people feel more informed about the nature of digital platforms, how they operate, and our role in using them in a more responsible, balanced, conscious, informed way. It’s unfortunate that it plays more into scaremongering and presenting a dystopian perspective where we have no control or responsibility over the role social media and digital platforms play in our lives, or how they influence us.
We have more control and influence over both responsible, ethical design and responsible use of these tools than the film makers would have us believe.
The Verge: What ‘The Social Dilemma’ misunderstands about social networks
The doco also seems to forget our recent history, and that other forms of mass communication and media have had decades of influence over the information we receive, and our perceptions, beliefs and behaviours. From Cosmo, Vogue, GQ, Mens Health and advertising in general shaping our self perception and need to compare and “keep up with the Jones’” to TV news and newspapers feeding us selective, filtered information, with a twist of bias in whichever way they lean.
Digital and social media platforms may have changed the landscape, and helped to connect, increase and amplify voices and messages further - both the positive and negative - but all we really did when we adopted digital platforms was take all our human behaviours and business objectives and practices - both good and bad - online.
There have been many important moments of necessary change that we’ve missed along the way.
The Guardian: The Social Dilemma: a wake-up call for a world drunk on dopamine?
They key to change isn’t in destroying or not using these platforms, the reality is digital devices, platforms, tools and apps, and social media platforms, are here to stay and will continue to evolve. To create change we need more ethical design and use from brands, business, advertisers and individuals; more informed, conscious, thoughtful use by us all; recognition that the issues discussed in pieces like The Social Dilemma aren’t unique to or the product of just digital and social media platforms; and more awareness of our own behaviour and thinking in our responses to the information and content we receive, and the actions of others - both online and off.
There is so much that can be said in response to The Social Dilemma, but there are a few main points of concern to that I believe should be addressed.
1. The Social Dilemma is considered a groundbreaking, deeply insightful “peek behind the curtain”.
For me this just shows how wilfully too many people use tools and participate in things they choose not to understand, and how willing people are to lay blame on them, a lot of the time unfairly - or at the very least unevenly. The Social Dilemma doesn’t present any groundbreaking or new insights, these complex conversations have been going on for years. in fact, the narrative it presents reinforces some problematic blindspots that stop us from seeing the real issues and solutions more broadly, and clearly.
We know social media and digital platforms:
- Are imperfect and complex in their business operations, strategies and policies and practices - the same can be said of every brand, business and government.
- Collect, use and allow access to our data in many different ways, from gathering insights for product or content development and improvement, building and reaching the right audiences, measuring business success, generating revenue and growth and much more- the same can be said of other brands and loyalty programs like FlyBuys, Frequent Flyers and our Credit Cards, who collect, use and share data to achieve many of the same objectives.
- Design AI and algorithms that allow the platforms, publishers and advertisers to use our interests, online behaviours, networks and other shared data to influence our decision making and beliefs by driving what we see in our newsfeeds, recommendations, search results, ads, email ads and other content - we also have the ability to strengthen our privacy controls, edit and control our targeting profile and block specific advertisers on some platforms - including Facebook and Instagram, limit data sharing and limit our online footprint - using options like incognito browsing or even choosing browsers designed to maximise data privacy.
Privacy Australia: Best ( and Worst) Secure Browsers
Digital Trends: The best browsers for privacy
- Are for the most part open source, allowing anyone to publish anything they wish - inevitably some people will publish and others will find misleading, false, problematic, dangerous, illegal and other content as a result. Digital platforms, publishers, authorities and the law not acting effectively in response to such content is just as problematic and dangerous as people simply accepting information that is presented to them because it fits their belief or bias, or seems so scandalous or insightful that it must be true- instead of approaching everything they see, hear and read with critical thinking, fact checking and fast, appropriate action.
Skills You Need: What is Critical Thinking?
Harvard Business Review: 3 Simple Habits to Improve Your Critical Thinking
The Social Dilemma seems to rest the sole responsibility for creating many of our modern problems on digital and social media platforms - with a particular focus on Facebook, Google and Instagram. While ALL platforms are accountable and responsible for their actions, strategies and impact, and can improve their transparency, business models, decision making, product development, processes and policies to reduce the risks and harm that can result from their operations and use, there are many brands, businesses, third parties, separate operators, tools, individuals and governments worldwide misusing these platforms and operating in questionable or harmful ways, both online and offline - whether intentionally or not.
The Social Dilemma extends far beyond social media.
The Social Dilemma experts may seem like they are breaking the silence with secrets, but not before they’ve made their fortunes in industries they still work in, yet appear to be acting as “whistle blowers” for. A not so small, and important, detail that was left out.
This is how much the people on Netflix’s The Social Dilemma are actually worth
A truly groundbreaking, insightful “peek behind the curtain” of social media and digital platforms would be less of a populist demonisation of social media and digital platforms, and more of a broader and more honest exploration of the complexity of our history and society, and how that is manifested and reflected through what we do online, and vice versa.
It would also talk more about what we can do to improve and change the harm we perpetuate through them all.
2. Other than a couple of small moments, it plays into the idea that humans are not much more than easily manipulated drones incapable of independent thought.
One thing The Social Dilemma gets indisputably correct is that if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. We may not pay to use social and digital platforms with money, but we do trade the collection and use of our data for it.
Some see data collection and use as the most underhanded, unjust, privacy invading, worst kept criminal secret of the start of this century. However, while we continue to complain about digital and social platforms collecting, using and sharing our data we pay for products and services like Netflix, Spotify, credit cards, frequent flyer and loyalty programs, software providers, magazines, media subscriptions, charity donations and countless others - all of which also collect, use and share our data, with our permission, to create business insights that will help to grow reach, relevance, partnerships, revenue and success.
We may buy all these products, but the publishers and advertisers in them have always been buying their own product at the same time - us.
Sometimes even when we’re paying for the product, we’re still the product - well our data, attention , dollars and retention are.
This fundamental concept, and that all brands collect, use and share our data, is something everyone could benefit from understanding more.
Humans are incredibly easy to influence and manipulate, and we do have a love of falling for unconscious bias, confirmation bias and habit. These are some of the behaviours that digital tools leverage, count on and trade off. But we’re also capable of independent thought, complex critical thinking, conscious self awareness and reflection, personal responsibility, objective choice, taking action and behaviour change.
These platforms are undeniably built on thoroughly engaging our attention and influencing human behaviours and decision making - but every business, brand and even government relies on these same objectives, without them they can’t succeed in whatever their goals and objectives may be.
The fact that we, as a collective society, haven’t been louder, more active and created more change to minimise the risks and problems that this can create in the past, are partly responsible for making the influence, control, strategies and risks The Social Dilemma discusses possible, leading us to where we are today.
I absolutely agree that every organisation, digital platform and government is accountable for enabling and participating in strategies and tactics that prioritise power, influence and revenue over people, ethics and common good and expanding the risks and harm this creates. They’re also responsible for taking urgent action to become more transparent, change and improve operations, priorities and goals, enact regulation and legislation to better protect people and users, minimise the potential for risks and harm and more effectively and quickly respond to harm and misuse.
However to create the changes and improvements we need, we as individuals, consumers and users have to acknowledge the roles we have played in getting us here as well- whether it’s through active participation and contribution, acceptance, obliviousness, or unwillingness to change. We have change our own behaviours and beliefs as well.
Let’s be careful not to be fooled by a scaremongering, disempowering, misleading narrative, that risks laying accountability and responsibility for change unevenly; just because it’s convenient, “scandalous” and easily digestible.
We’re only as uninformed, unaware, powerless and easy to manipulate as we choose to be.
3. Mental Health and Self Perception
The Social Dilemma tells us that increased social media use is directly related to declines in mental and physical health - broadly measuring depression, anxiety and general satisfaction. With mental health being such a broad term that covers so many conditions, with many complex interdependencies it’s impossible to correlate one specific element as being solely responsible for such impacts and declines. The claim leaves many questions to be asked about everything from the content being viewed to hours being spent online, who we’re interacting with online, our skills to manage how we react and respond to all of these, and how problematic or positive our time spent is - all of which are easy to forget that ultimately, are in our control.
With more awareness, information, education, personal responsibility and at times change, we can have more control over the potential impacts to our mental health. The less experience and awareness we have, the harder it is to create control.
There is absolutely data that correlates declines in mental health with the rise of digital device and social media adoption, with the tipping point being in 2011 as smart phone device ownership tipped over 50% of the population in the US. Dr Jean Twenge published the compelling 2017 study “ iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us” that is a valuable and worthy read. However social issues like the growing urgency of climate change, global political issues, greater financial instability as we recovered from the 07-09 GFC, a changing and less certain future for young people, and other global and social issues have to also be considered as contributing factors to declining mental health and satisfaction.
Although The Social Dilemma alludes to it, it’s impossible to lay the blame of the rise of depression and anxiety, and the decline of connection and satisfaction, solely on the growth of digital and social media.
Basically, it’s a clusterfuck.
Mental health and social media are generally spoken about in two broad aspects - the impact of comparing our lives against others, and the impact of bullying, trolling and destructive, harmful comments made by others, or even harmless ones, all of which trigger our own inner critic and anxieties.
The Unhealthy Art of Comparison
The unhealthy art of comparison is complex, but I spoke about it’s impacts and possible approaches to solutions when Instagram stopped displaying likes in the post - A Simple Like, Isn't As Simple As You Think. Comparison, and holding ourselves to the unattainable, social constructs, ideals and standards of others didn’t start with Snapchat and Instagram filters or listening to online comments though. The classic phrase “Keeping Up with the Jones’’” has a history that dates back to the 1870’s, and women’s magazines have been creating and marketing unattainable beauty and lifestyle standards since titles like Harpers Bazaar launched in 1867. Vogue followed in 1892 and the launch of GQ in 1931 gave men the same unrealistic pressures to live up to.
Even photoshop and the unhealthy, unattainable standards it has allowed publishers like these to create pre-dates public internet, launching in 1990. Google followed 8 years later with MySpace launching in 2003 and Facebook in 2004. For decades before the internet launched, magazines told us everything about ourselves, our homes and our lifestyles that was wrong, less than or unfashionable and needed changing to “fit in”.
The unhealthy art of comparison in our lifestyle and beauty standards, the expectation that we strive for these unattainable, unrealistic ideals, and the belief that we should pay more attention to what others think of us than to what we think of ourselves were well established in our psychology and self perception, and fucking us up, long before the internet and social media came along.
Bullying, Trolling and the Comments of Others
Australian journalist Ginger Gorman published the excellent exploration of online trolling in her book, Troll Hunting. The harm that online bullying and trolling can do can’t be discounted or underplayed. However people wanting to destroy the lives of others in one way or another also didn’t begin with the internet. I often look back in history to find other examples and one of the clearest I commonly use is the Salem Witch Trials of the 17th Century. While trolls take to online to inflict harm on others, in the 17th Century all someone had to do to destroy the life of someone they didn’t like, was whisper to a few townsfolk that they were a witch. If that poor, unfortunate soul drowned when they were plunged into the lake, their death proved they were human..surviving was proof they were witch, and they were burned at the stake.
Depending on whether you were the troll or the victim, it was a lose/lose or win/win situation.
Humans have always had the ability to both be filled with kindness and compassion, and evil cruelty. Digital and social media platforms may allow us to amplify these behaviours further, and they all need to improve how they police and moderate the worst of our human behaviours, but they didn’t create them. Ultimately, they also aren’t responsible for changing them… we are.
If we want to fix the problems caused by human behaviour, we have to stop blaming the tools we create.. and start holding ourselves accountable for our behaviours.. and for changing them.
The beliefs and behaviours we see on social media are simply a reflection of our beliefs behaviours offline, both the joyous and inspiring and the toxic and poisonous.. all social media does is help us spread them further than they ever have in the past.
4. Communities, Content and Group Think
In the early 90’s I met a lifelong friend. We were both 16, I lived in Melbourne, Australia he lived in Red Bay, Alabama, USA. Neither of us had travelled, we met through the Pen Pal pages of the Madonna Fan Club monthly magazine ( #unapologeticbitch, don’t judge me), and we were 21 before we met in person. Each month that magazine had pages full of fans from around the world wanting to connect with each other. For a while I had pen pals in Ghana, Paris, London, New York, New Zealand and the tiny town of Red Bay.
That magazine was a community in print. Long before the internet came along we found ways to find and connect with our tribe and share our interests and stories.. whether it was Madonna fans in clubs by mail or Punks of the 70’s led by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood uniting at SEX and CBGB.
There were of course also darker clubs, like the KKK - founded in 1865, and the thousands of conspiracy theory groups that have existed throughout history. It’s a great irony that there’s a common belief among conspiracy theorists is that the term “conspiracy theory” was created by the CIA as part of the JFK murder cover up. In fact, the first uses of the term can be traced back to the 1860’s… not that facts matter to a conspiracy theorist…
ResearchGate: Conspiracy Theory: The Nineteenth-Century Prehistory of a Twentieth-Century Concept
Although the internet has made it easier for communities and tribes to connect, whether harmful or connecting over a passion, they have always been able to find each other. The worst communities have always used their ever growing networks to their spread fear, hate and misinformation further. With conspiracy theories being able to be traced back to the late 19th Century, rumour and fake news - and the harm it causes - is also not even the fault of modern media, let alone the internet.
The modern media, the worst groups and communities, and even governments and business play an integral role in proliferating hate, misinformation and division. They’ve also been doing it long before the internet came along as a tool to use to amplify their work.
MediaBiasFactCheck, Snopes and even just a simple Google to factcheck what you find, and holding the media and others to account, are great places to start with stopping the spread of harm and misinformation.
5. The only discussion on possible and solutions actions was a tiny bit of B-roll over the credits.
Digital and social platforms absolutely make it easier to grow and live in filter bubbles, help to reinforce echo chambers and are able to influence our behaviour and thinking - all of which have always been dangerous for maintaining social stability and cohesion while minimising division. However media, social communities, influential voices and brands in all their forms were doing this long before these platforms were. Digital platforms just enable these to grow to a much larger scale - which does amplify their reach and impacts, both good and bad.
However it always has been, is and will be up to us as individuals to independently and critically think about and question our own behaviours, what is presented to us, and change and influence the things we can.
There are many ways to approach these fundamental behaviours, and this TEDxSydney talk from Lucinda Beaman is a great opportunity to start learning how.
The Social Dilemma is a valuable documentary, even if it is a little one sided, and if it guides us to anything it’s that social and digital platforms are as imperfect, ever evolving, and have the potential to have powerful influences in our lives, as do the thousands of other brands and organisations we interact with. All brands and organisations across the world have a responsibility to act more ethically, and improve, as they maintain and grow their offering, reach, revenue and profit.
Unfortunately we’ve been fooled into believing false narratives and misdirected responsibility too many times in the past not to question and think more for ourselves. The Netflix docuseries Broken is an interesting and valuable exploration of social and environmental issues from a consumer perspective and is worth watching - the episode on plastics and recycling gives us just one example of the dangers of being fooled by blindly accepting manipulated messages and misdirected responsibility.
The first public awareness recycling campaign in the 1970’s launched the recycling symbol we still use today, created recycling messages and habits that stuck, and sounds like a story of excellent corporate social responsibility and great personal empowerment. The campaign was hugely successful in its goals - they’re just not the goals you think.
As the episode of Broken breaks open, the campaign’s true success was the deflection of responsibility for the plastics problem away from those actually responsible for it - the plastics industry and government who created, profited from it’s ongoing growth and held the real power to change and fix it - onto consumers and the public. This left the plastics industry free to continue producing more and more plastics without question, awareness or any imperative to make improvements that would minimise their impact and harm.
Recycling was never the real answer to our plastics problem - plastic production and our blind acceptance of the messages and responsibility presented was.
This might not seem relevant to our The Social Dilemma.. but like now, if we had seen the real problem through the misdirection spin then, and held the right parties responsible to act effectively while also changing our own behaviours, it’s highly likely the plastic pollution problems of today would be very different.
Refs
https://thetab.com/uk/2020/09/14/the-social-dilemma-net-worths-netflix-174813
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/don-t-get-why-the-serena-cartoon-was-racist-20180911-p5031f.html
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/07/sydneys-daily-telegraph-has-daniel-andrews-sussed-out.html
https://www.npr.org/2011/11/25/142704489/racist-history-of-american-news-media
https://www.pixelz.com/blog/photoshop-models-laws/