The Social Dilemma: The Dark Side of Social Media
The weekend I watched the Netflix hybrid documentary The Social Dilemma. This documentary-drama hybrid blends a documentary investigation and a narrative drama to disrupt the disrupters while unveiling the hidden machinations behind everyone’s favorite social media and search platforms. In the film, we meet tech experts who had a part in creating platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and many more and how they figured out that social media is dictating the way we think and see things.
As I watched this movie, I could not help but think of all the times that social media tried to get my attention to pick up my phone and scroll through their feed. A particular moment I found resonated with my own experience with social media, such as Facebook finding different ways to cause me to keep clicking and coming back to the app. They would, for example, have new notifications come through and say that someone “liked” your photo, someone you might know joined, or “Someone is near, send a wave or say hi.” Every time I would hear my phone ring, I would have to look at the notification and then open the app to see. As Tristan Harris said in the movie, “no one at Google was thinking about making it less addicting.” They want us to be all consumed and yearn to know what people are looking at and saying all the time.
I believe that social media distorts our views of ourselves and the way we see certain things in the world because people feel that they can say anything, as long as it is behind a computer screen that shields them; therefore, it won’t matter. One instance of this happening was a girl I thought was my friend started criticizing me for the way I look, as I have always been a bigger girl than many of my friends, and she thought because she was behind the computer, she could tear me down. I started to become very self-conscious about the way I look and never wanted to take pictures with people or, at most, have them uploaded to social media so that experience doesn’t happen again.
As humans, we need to have the willpower to put the phone, computer, or tablet aside and observe the outside world and all it offers because life is too short. Here are some ways that we can limit our time on our devices and social media:
- Manage your notifications — Even a short 2-minute interruption can completely derail you and reduce your productivity every time you’re distracted. This means if you have a lot of notifications turned on and you’re distracted every 10–30 minutes, you may never reach complete focus to do high-quality, deep work (Lighthouse).
- Timing — Set aside specific times of the day to be on social media. For example, an established window of time between this time in the morning, middle of the day, and at night.
- Limiting your time on screen — One can also set time limits on each app, restricting the time spent on social media.
- Family Time — As Tim Kendall said in the movie while sitting in the pantry on his phone despite the fact, he has two young children needing him. We need to put down our devices when it is family time, such as dinner, playing a game, or just talking to each other.
When it comes to my personal use of my phone, I don’t feel that I am 100% attached to it. I can go on vacation and not even use it all week unless I need it for photos; in addition, I have gone to places where I have no internet connection and didn’t have any anxiety about it. I feel that I need social media to communicate with people that I don’t normally talk to outside of social media. I am involved with groups on Facebook for things that I am interested in, which is the only place where I can express how I feel about something specific.
I also use it to keep up with what others are doing that I know but am not that close with, for example, baby announcements, engagements, weddings, or a family member’s passing.
Gen Z has been raised with social media and by having a cell phone with quick access to all forms of social media, and that is all they know. It’s sad to see that self-harm for this age group is up 189% from 2009 when social media started (The Social Dilemma).
I am fortunate that I’m a Millennial that didn’t get a phone till 2005. I was 14, and it was a flip phone that didn’t have any fancy features. I believe social media is here to stay and will keep evolving; however, we need to have the willpower and strength to limit our time and set boundaries for ourselves with social media.
https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/tips/tech-relationship/
The Social Dilemma on Netflix