‘The Social Dilemma’ Review: Unplug and Run
This documentary from Jeff Orlowski explores how
addiction and privacy breaches are features, not bugs, of social media
platforms.
By Devika
Girish
Sept. 9,
2020
The Social
DilemmaDirected by Jeff OrlowskiDocumentary, DramaPG-131h 29m
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/movies/the-social-dilemma-review.html
That social
media can be addictive and creepy isn’t a revelation to anyone who uses
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like. But in Jeff Orlowski’s documentary
“The Social Dilemma,” conscientious defectors from these companies explain that
the perniciousness of social networking platforms is a feature, not a bug.
They claim that
the manipulation of human behavior for profit is coded into these companies
with Machiavellian precision: Infinite scrolling and push notifications keep
users constantly engaged; personalized recommendations use data not just to
predict but also to influence our actions, turning users into easy prey for
advertisers and propagandists.
As in his
documentaries about climate change, “Chasing Ice” and “Chasing Coral,” Orlowski
takes a reality that can seem too colossal and abstract for a layperson to
grasp, let alone care about, and scales it down to a human level. In “The
Social Dilemma,” he recasts one of the oldest tropes of the horror genre — Dr.
Frankenstein, the scientist who went too far — for the digital age.
In briskly
edited interviews, Orlowski speaks with men and (a few) women who helped build
social media and now fear the effects of their creations on users’ mental
health and the foundations of democracy. They deliver their cautionary
testimonies with the force of a start-up pitch, employing crisp aphorisms and
pithy analogies.
“Never
before in history have 50 designers made decisions that would have an impact on
two billion people,” says Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google.
Anna Lembke, an addiction expert at Stanford University, explains that these
companies exploit the brain’s evolutionary need for interpersonal connection.
And Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook, delivers a chilling
allegation: Russia didn’t hack Facebook; it simply used the platform.
Much of
this is familiar, but “The Social Dilemma” goes the extra explainer-mile by
interspersing the interviews with P.S.A.-style fictional scenes of a suburban
family suffering the consequences of social-media addiction. There are silent
dinners, a pubescent daughter (Sophia Hammons) with self-image issues and a
teenage son (Skyler Gisondo) who’s radicalized by YouTube recommendations
promoting a vague ideology.
This
fictionalized narrative exemplifies the limitations of the documentary’s
sometimes hyperbolic emphasis on the medium at the expense of the message. For
instance, the movie’s interlocutors pin an increase in mental illness on social
media usage yet don’t acknowledge factors like a rise in economic insecurity.
Polarization, riots and protests are presented as particular symptoms of the
social-media era without historical context.
Despite
their vehement criticisms, the interviewees in “The Social Dilemma” are not all
doomsayers; many suggest that with the right changes, we can salvage the good
of social media without the bad. But the grab bag of personal and political
solutions they present in the film confuses two distinct targets of critique:
the technology that causes destructive behaviors and the culture of unchecked
capitalism that produces it.
Nevertheless,
“The Social Dilemma” is remarkably effective in sounding the alarm about the
incursion of data mining and manipulative technology into our social lives and
beyond. Orlowski’s film is itself not spared by the phenomenon it scrutinizes.
The movie is streaming on Netflix, where it’ll become another node in the
service’s data-based algorithm.
The Social
Dilemma
Rated PG-13
for dystopian speculation and some graphic images of violence. Running time: 1
hour 34 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
The Social
Dilemma
DirectorJeff
Orlowski
WritersDavis
Coombe, Vickie Curtis, Jeff Orlowski
StarsSkyler
Gisondo, Kara Hayward, Vincent Kartheiser, Tristan Harris, Sophia Hammons
RatingPG-13
Running
Time1h 29m
GenresDocumentary,
Drama
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