The Social Dilemma

A documentary on how social media platforms use your interactions in order to promote things to you. This data and resulting analysis forms the basis for what you see in your news feed, impacting your thoughts, views and actions.

Excellent documentary, highlighting the addictiveness and manipulativeness of social media. Former employees, many of them with senior roles, from a variety of media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, Pinterest, among others) detail how social media companies mine your data in order to, using sophisticated algorithms, determine what shows up on your screen. The aim is to increase advertising revenue. Essentially they're selling you to the advertiser, making you the product, not the customer.

The documentary also shows how this impacts your thoughts and behaviours, as you end up only seeing news and views that reinforce your pre-existing views, rather than challenging them, leading to a polarisation of society.

The points made in the interviews are illustrated with a mini-drama involving a family, showing how the children spend far too much time staring at their phones and how social media shapes their self-image and confidence and distorts their perceptions.

All in all it's a very thought-provoking, sobering, challenging examination of the world we live in.

There are a lot of things, that social media can be considered to be positive. But they also enhance things that are not so good for us. A lot of things said here, should be common knowledge, still hearing them or seeing them being visualized (there are sections that are fiction or rather show a stylized version of what is happening behind the scenes) is a different beast.

Then there is also the missinformation. Will those who are most prone to be victims of these understand or rather change their behavior based on this? I would believe that they won't. They kind of can't in a way. When you are in a vicious cycle, how are you supposed to escape from the missinformation you are getting? Impossible would be the most accurate answer. Still this is spotlighting both sides and gives us an insight on how differences come about and are created ... it does not really offer solutions, though a lot of suggestions. Especially during the end credits, some advice to parents with children and how to use social media or how to educate them.

A documentary should be just that. This doc lost credit with the ridiculous acting scenes. They cheapened the message. Please take note future documentarians! No more stupid dramatizations in documentaries!

It's partly unbelievable a documentary like this has not aired yet. Albeit not perfect in execution - the acted part is underwhelming - it is a definite eye opener and should be watched by teens, parents, entrepreneurs, politicians and everybody else.

First let me say I liked the messages conveyed in this documentary (not so much the dramatisations} and believe they are important and true, but ... Is that because it was a one sided documentary (which it was) which always makes for a much more persuasive argument? Also, did I only watch this because it appeared on my Netflix Home page, and is this just because Netflix knows that I like these types of documentaries? If so, then I feel like I may have been manipulated by the technology and that this could actually be fake news, however if that is true then the arguments contained in the documentary are true which makes it real news. My head is spinning, it is too much for my simple brain. I think I will just go and check my Facebook page to make sure that people still like me.