The Social Dilemma Review
On Sunday, I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix, and it was a big eye-opener for me. The documentary discussed the dark side of social networking, where big Internet and social media companies are manipulating us subconsciously. For example, Instagram has advertisements that are tailored to you, and they are meant to bring a slight change in your brain's current state. Therefore, what is shown in your feed is meant to change your thinking. Facebook is designed to keep you online for as long as possible so they can show you a lot of advertisements, and they are manipulating you and your time through the process. The algorithms that are designed to keep people on screen as much as possible are actually taking a toll on mankind's free will because of the slight changes to our brain that the social media apps bring.
The algorithms created by companies are getting better at predicting our interests by using artificial intelligence, but that is an issue because the machines do not take into account the ethical concerns of manipulating human beings. This means that Internet companies know everything about us and we don’t even know about it.
The documentary urges people to look at the ethical concerns of social media because of the way that we are being subconsciously manipulated. Many of the world’s problems are associated with the way social media influences people. For example, looking up something on Google can have different results based on your current location and what Google knows about you. People are being shown content that they are likely to agree with while not showing the other side. This is one of the reasons why our country is more politically polarized than ever.
Have you watched the documentary? What did you think about it? If you haven’t seen the documentary, what is your opinion about the ethical side of social media? Do you think changes should be made by the government?
I have not seen the documentary but after this review I want to! It is creepy to me, but I sometimes enjoy the tailored ads, because if I'm going to get ads, they might as well be ads for things I will like. I never thought about why our country is so separated politically right now, and the internet being a major part of that is crazy.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen the documentary yet Yair, but from what you wrote it sounds extremely interesting. Now that I think about it, it's true how much social media influences our lives and our every day decisions. Who knows if there's really a microphone inside everybody's phone that listens to them and tailors ads for them. Also, I believe that the government does know about this, and can't do anything because they can't fight the major corporations that silently run this country.
ReplyDeleteI have not seen this documentary, and I don't really know if I want to. I know how social media and the internet knows all about us, and that freaks me out. It's so crazy how our lives revolve around the internet now. Honestly, I feel like there is nothing the government can do because the algorithms are so smart. These big social media companies want to keep us engaged for as long as possible, and they do exactly that. Our everyday lives are constantly affected by social media and the internet- it's insane.
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