WATCHED - The Social Dilemma

If you've ever wondered how you became so addictied to your iPhone, iPad or tablet, then watch this documentary. Not long ago social media outlets had huge followings but the companies that owned them were financially precarious. They started to sell advertising space on their sites, monetising the attention span of their followers, They weren't only selling audience numbers, but also what you viewed, your interests and what you bought. They were selling you and your data. 

Google and Facebook developed algorithms that would push any material at you that, based on your previous activity, it thought you might like. The frequency of your time on the site became an additional sales tool to encourage advertising investment. You buy a kitchen knife online and end up getting sent adverts from sites selling scimitars and machetes. 

This development and monitoring of our activity on social media becomes it's reason to exist, sending us notification emails, posts, anything to keep you on the site looking, checking and giving it your attention. In this way we were all being trained in an addiction to social media. Compelled to look incase we are missing out on something.

Some of the individuals involved in the rolling out of these programming initiatives started to be uneasy at the unforseen consequences of them. The increasing prevalence of fake news, conspiracy theories, medical quackery and political manipulation of elections. Algorithms have no moral compass, they just keep shoveling any material they think you might like in your face. Its how Trump turned himself into the voice of the left out and disaffected, irrespective of this stance being fraudulent.

So people who self harm or feel suicidal get sent more posts from similarly desperate people. People with a grievance against individuals, races, religions or cultures receive posts from people holding similar intolerant viewpoints. The opinions we hold, right or wrong, true or false, get encouraged and sustained by other posts from like-minded folk. These opinion bubbles go largely unchallenged. The division between Us and Them, becomes ever more exaggerated and the common ground we share left unexplored or actively derided. What is disheartening is how social media companies still suffer from a huge degree of public denial about their culpability in this. 

What can you do? Well right now turn off as many notifications on your phone or tablet as you can. Minimise your engagement, try to train your self to check emails and social media only once or twice a day.  You could come off social media altogether or decide to use one not multiple outlets. I post primarily through this blog now. Everything you do online will be being monitored, so it's always best you take care what you put out there.  Post responsibly; think twice or thrice before you press send and publish - do you want this out there and why?  

Internet forums work because they flatter our self esteem, vanity and ego, that we and our opinions matter. It is something that I have to remind myself of quite frequently is, who cares? In the bigger scheme of life none of it matters. Don't take Trump as your role model, be self- censoring online.

Give this documentary a watch, it really is deeply insightful about why our civilisation and democracy has gone so seriously wonky lately. Its available to stream on Netflix.