In The Social Dilemma, one of the main interviewees, Tristan Harris from the Center for Humane Technology, tells a story about trying to bring large-scale ethical change to Google. He sent out a carefully crafted presentation to a few of his colleagues, and the presentation spread like wildfire.
For a few weeks.
Then, the conversation dropped. People returned to working and using technology like normal.
And in the aftermath of watching The Social Dilemma, I can’t help but wonder if this documentary will have the same result.
Will it be something people watch? Excitedly consume before forgetting the knowledge and returning to the stream of technology?
It’s been two weeks since I first watched The Social Dilemma, and I watched it again recently before posting this to make sure the main points were fresh in my mind.
As a digital marketer who uses social media platforms daily, I believe I have a responsibility to consider the ethical implications of using these platforms to reach out to our customers and potential clients.
Below is my attempt to process the documentary and share my thoughts on it from a digital marketer’s perspective.
Introduction to The Social Dilemma
Even if you haven’t seen the documentary, I think you’ll find this blog interesting. To catch you up to speed or to provide a refresher for anyone like me that needed it only a few weeks after watching, here’s a summary of The Social Dilemma.
The Social Dilemma is a documentary that interviews several influential individuals that created or grew social media platforms and Google. Their names and titles are impressive. Former President of Pinterest and head of monetization for Facebook. Co-inventor of Google Drive. An early investor in Facebook.
It’s safe to say that these sources are credible and that if you have these apps on your phone or computer, these interviewees have shaped an aspect of your life.
Throughout the documentary, the topics include:
- Persuasive design of technology
- Addiction to our phones and social media platforms
- Increased depression and anxiety in younger generations
- Increased polarization in society
- Long term effects on society from social media
Key Takeaways from The Social Dilemma
Below, I summarize some of the film’s key takeaways from my perspective as a digital marketer who uses these platforms daily for my own business and clients.
I’ll start with some of the film’s points that didn’t surprise me and move into the biggest takeaways that did surprise me.
Everything you’re doing online is being watched and monitored.
If you’ve ever had a conversation about a product and later seen it pop up as an ad on your phone, this won’t come as a surprise to you.
The documentary highlights how companies gather our data and how they’re using it to influence our behavior.
As someone who uses Facebook ads for clients, I have a general sense of the data they’re collecting. But, for the most part, I’ve seen this as a benefit – a way to make the platform more customized to you and your likes. A way to give people content they care about.
However, as you’ll see in the “surprised” section, they’re using some of this data in ways I didn’t understand or expect.
Social media is increasing societal polarization.
Since social media algorithms were created to feed us content that aligns with what we care about, our beliefs can become reinforced by what we see online.
The documentary highlights how this feedback loop (or online echo chamber) can create a false sense that everyone agrees with you. In turn, this allows people to be more easily manipulated, particularly by fake news.
This aspect of the documentary wasn’t too surprising because of what’s currently happening in the United States. Polarization is rampant.
I found value in how the documentary interviewees explained how this virtual echo chamber can affect anyone.
This reinforces the need to consider sources when reading or listening to content and to be aware of how a piece of content is informing our beliefs.
The platforms were not designed to be evil. The need to monetize free apps created issues.
Throughout the documentary, it’s mentioned that the platforms’ developers never intended to create something addicting that negatively impacted the way we as humans connect.
They saw these platforms as a force for good.
The issues for several of these platforms started when they needed to monetize. To solve the monetization issue, developers chose an advertising model for social media platforms where the “people using the platform are the product being sold to advertisers.”
Although I didn’t think of people as the product, I knew that advertisers powered and paid for the platform. I can also see how people could create these platforms with good in mind, not understanding the lasting impact of their ever-evolving creation.
Now, these social media platforms have outgrown their ability to regulate themselves, which we’ll dive into later.
The apps were intentionally designed to use human behavior and psychology to keep users engaged and active. As users, we’re also the testers for future app developments that help the apps better understand human behavior.
The documentary shares how the technology behind social media platforms have been designed to plant unconscious habits into us by tapping into deep-seeded human behavior.
They’ve done this by continually testing app developments and developing evolving algorithms to understand what will keep us engaged with the platform.
This revelation from the documentary disturbed me.
And maybe, it’s because I feel like I should have known it. Of course, the platforms would be designed to maximize human engagement.
Yet, this information brought to light several habits I have with social media. Some of these are current, and some I’ve had to delete platforms to deal with:
The impulse to check Twitter before bed. The need to refresh my email multiple times a day. Sometimes, I’ll open a new internet tab on my laptop and type in “Facebook” or “Reddit” without thinking about it.
Which brings us to the next point.
We can’t just adapt to it. We’re looking for when technology surpasses human strength, but it’s already overpowering human weaknesses.
The documentary highlights that while computing power has increased exponentially, our human brains have remained the same. And, our minds aren’t evolving any time soon.
Through our mental vulnerabilities, platforms can tap into addiction. Bring about depression and anxiety in adolescents. Cause increased feeling of disconnection.
This might be the area where I was most naive.
I have always seen social media as a tool, a means by which to connect. But as the documentary highlights, these platforms have expanded beyond that.
A tool is something you pick up and use at will. These are now using our own psychology against us.
Even the people that created the platforms have problems with addiction to them. And, they’re taking steps to protect their children from them.
During one powerful moment in the film, the people who designed and grew these platforms shared their weaknesses for them too. Pinterest’s former president admitted he would go home from work and find himself scrolling through the platform. Someone else admitted to email addiction. Twitter. Reddit.
These are people that knew the social media platforms intimately – they built them – and still they couldn’t escape the habits the platforms create through their algorithms.
At the end of the film, interviewees that are parents share how they’re protecting their children from social media. Each one discusses social media usage with their children and sets boundaries.
Hearing this drove home the point that no one is unreachable from the effects of social media. And sometimes, the best thing you can do for yourself is set strict limits.
Personal Next Steps
The documentary acknowledged that technology is not going to go away. If anything, it will become more integrated into our society.
And as it does, I think digital marketers like myself need to pause and consider how we will ethically engage with this technology.
A Quick Background of My Interest in Social Media & Ethics
But before I dive into my next steps, I want to share that this isn’t the first time I’ve considered the impact of social media on society.
I was first alerted to this subject in my sophomore year of college during a Public Relations class. This class taught about the importance of creating mutually beneficial channels of communication between businesses and their customers.
It’s when I realized that marketing didn’t have to be used only to persuade someone to buy something.
Marketing, public relations, and digital communications can benefit buyers’ lives and create businesses that better serve them.
It’s a concept I carry with me today and use with my clients.
To graduate from Purdue University’s Honors College, I needed to write a thesis. I chose to write mine on creating an ethical framework in which to create social media posts.
All this is to say, ethically using social media matters to me. Deeply.
My Next Steps
As a digital marketer, knowing that social media and SEO is an integrated, important part of digital marketing, how do I go forward?
Below, I’m listing my personal next steps after watching the documentary – both immediate and longer-term.
Immediate Actions
There were two things I did right when The Social Dilemma ended.
First, I went through all of the apps on my phones.
I deleted the ones I didn’t use, and I turned off all notifications for all apps that weren’t either messaging apps (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Messages) or weather.
It disconcerted me when the documentary talked about how apps use the notification feature to get and keep your attention. What I thought was a conscious choice to check an app now seems like a programmed behavior I developed.
Now, two weeks later, I’ve seen my phone usage go down significantly. The first week with notifications off, I was on my phone 40% less. Last week, I was down almost 30% below that.
That’s a lot of time added back into my day.
Second, I went to thesocialdilemma.com.
I wanted to learn more about the ways they suggested individuals take action. I found it funny that one of the first actions was to “Fight Fire with Fire” by sharing about The Social Dilemma on social media.
If that’s not a testament to how much of our culture social media has become, and how it is here to stay, I don’t know what is! And, it’s what I’ll be doing now.
Additionally, here are some of the actions I took from the Take Action page:
- Learned more about the Center for Humane Technology
- Added the Ad Observed browser plug-in
- Read the Tips About Reclaiming Your Screen Time
Long-Term Effects
Supporting Government Regulation
At the end of the film, the interviewees stress the need for government regulations on social media platforms and data collection. That social media platforms need to be radically redesigned in a more humane way, and that without financial incentive or regulation, that isn’t going to happen.
So, now, I’ll seek out ways to support these efforts.
Using Social Media Responsibly
As the interviewees mentioned, the creators of social media platforms did it with good intentions. They wanted to allow people a space to connect, to create, to engage.
Even if the platforms and their algorithms have twisted these intentions, I believe that as a marketer, I can make sure what Elevate is doing on social media is for the good of the people we’re marketing to.
To me, that means creating and sharing high-value content and promoting good, ethical products. So when a consumer runs into an ad, it isn’t something that’s trying to manipulate their behavior. Rather, we truly believe that by engaging with us, this will benefit their life in some way.
This also reinforces something that I do with Elevate clients anyway – I choose them carefully.
At Elevate, we only work with companies that we are passionate about promoting.
Because if I don’t believe in my clients and the good their product or service does, why should I try to convince someone else of that?
Thought-Provoking Quotes from The Social Dilemma
There are a lot of stand-out quotes in this documentary, so to finish this blog, I’ve provided a few for you to mull over.
If you have any specific response to these, leave it in a comment below, or send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook (using the very platforms we’re talking about – ha!)
Quotes from the Documentary’s Interviewees
“When you look around you, it feels like the world is going crazy. You have to stop and ask yourself. Is this normal? Or have we all fallen under some kind of spell?” Tristan Harris, Center for Humane Technology, former design engineer for Google.
“There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.” – Edward Tufte
“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.“
“Do you check your phone before you pee in the morning or while you pee in the morning? Because that’s the only two options.” – Roger McNamee
“We evolved to care about whether other people in our tribe think well of us. But were we evolved to be aware of what 10,000 people think of us? We were not evolved to have social approval dosed to us every five minutes.” – Tristan Harris
“People talk about AI as if AI can solve the problem…AI cannot solve the problem of fake news. Google doesn’t have the option of asking – is this conspiracy? Is this truth? Because they don’t have a proxy for truth that’s better than a click.” Cathe O’Neil – PHD
“It’s not about technology being the existential threat. It’s about the technology bringing out the worst in society and the worst in society being the existential threat.
“If technology creates mass chaos, outrage, incivility, lack of trust, loneliness, alienation, more polarization, more election hacking, more populism, more distraction and inability to focus on the real issues…that’s just society. And now society is incapable of healing itself.” – Tristan Harris
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