The Social Dilemma is a Netflix documentary.
Some excerpts--
Social media is creating thoughts in people's minds, which they did not intend to have. If we are not paying for the product then we are the product. It is the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in our behavior and perception that is the product. It is surveillance capitalism. There is engagement, growth, and advertising goal. It is exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. Technology is demanding, seducing, and manipulating humans.
Social media has its own goals, its persuasive tools to manipulate us by using our own psychology against us. Overcome it by will power and brute force or rules. We are evolved to care about whether other people in our tribe think well of us or no because it matters. Were we evolved to be aware of what 10,000 people think of us? We were not evolved to have social approval being dosed to us every five minutes.
We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection because we get rewarded in these short term signals. We become more vacant and empty than we were before we received a bad comment.
Many people using social media are manipulated and are addicted. Social media takes away childrens sense of identity and worth. They have short, fake, and brittle personality. One bad comment starts a vicious cycle of getting good perception back. There is an increase in the incidence of depression and anxiety in gen Z. They are more anxious, fragile, and depressed. There is a new term called "Snapchat dysmorphia". Children are opting for more plastic surgery. The number of dates is decreasing. Families are traumatized and horrified for children. Children are comparing themselves with unrealistic standards and beauty. They are using a digital pacifier. There is atrophy of our ability to deal with our own condition.
Tech company goals are different from our goals. AI is controlling us more than we are controlling it. Technology is overwhelming human strength and intelligence. People do not see the same information, news, google results, etc. Search results are different for everyone. It is isolating us in our own cocoons and thinking, like tribals. We do not want and can not trust others. Once we watch something, it will bring it to our attention again and again. It is a "disinformation for profit" business model. Social media is a tool of persuasion. It confuses us. It is destabilizing and eroding the fabric of society. Manipulation by third parties is not a hack. Using social media, one country can manipulate another country without invading its borders. Democracy is completely for sale and any mind can be reached. It is creating cultural wars. It is creating a nation of people who do not speak to each other. We need some shared understanding of reality.
Where is the existential threat? There is a supercomputer behind our phone screen, pointing at our brain, getting us to watch what it wants. Technology is not an existential threat, it is its ability to bring out the worst in society. It creates mass chaos, instability, lack of trust in each other, loneliness, alienation, more polarization, more hacking, popularism, distraction, and inability to focus on real issues, mixed with the inability to heal itself. Technology has no responsibility. Then, who is responsible for all this?
It is a race to keep people's attention. We are destroying our civilization through willful ignorance. How is the new generation going to wake up from the matrix when they do not know that they are in a matrix. It is utopia plus dystopia. It is hard to get out of this AI now. Some people are trapped in this business model, economic incentive, and shareholder pressure. The financial incentive is running the world. There is no fiscal reason for these companies to change and that is why regulations and laws are required.
Should there be a tax on data collection? It is time to consider people, nations, civilization interest over the interest of tech companies. These are the times when dead trees are more important and beneficial than living trees, dead whale has more worth than a living one and now we are that tree and whale. Our time and attention to the screen are more beneficial to these companies than our lives and happiness.
We can demand that these products be designed more humanly and not to be treated as an extractable resource. Awareness and public pressure are needed. Never click what the social media site recommends. Choose what you want to see. Turn of notifications. Delete unnecessary apps. Use alternatives to google e.g. Quant which does not store the search history. Keep all devices out of the bedroom every night for a fixed time. Say no to social media until high school or maybe 16 yrs of age. Set time limits for screen use.
Bharti Raizada
