Recently my friends and I watched The Social Dilemma, a documentary on Netflix that examines the design of social media and its consequences over the past decade on both an individual and societal level. I personally found it fascinating to see how something like social media, which at its inception was meant for connecting people, took on a sinister tone as the apparent root of today’s political polarization, media addiction, and widespread mental health crises. As someone part of Gen Z, the generation probably most affected by social media, I’ve seen and experienced many of the consequences mentioned in the documentary.  I’d recommend watching the documentary, but this blog will also function as a sparknotes run down of the documentary, main takeaways, and some of my thoughts on how I use devices and  social media in my life.

So what is the social dilemma?

In a nutshell, the social dilemma is the negative externalities to individuals and society from the monetization and design of social media. In economics, externalities are the invisible costs associated with a particular good or service; in the case of social media, however, the costs associated (mental health, polarization, and addiction) are actually very visible.

How did we get here?

At its beginning, Instagram was a place to share photos with your friends anywhere at any time. Facebook was a place to keep connected with friends over the internet, the “like” button created as a way to spread positivity. As these apps rose in popularity, monetization of these seemingly free apps became lucrative. Let’s take a look at the basic business model of how social media apps make money.

These free apps and services make money through advertisements. Social media sites are expected to connect companies to people who would buy their products, which results in a model that encourages two things: mass data collection on users and the adverse incentive to keep users on social media sites as long as possible. Social media sites are programmed to create a tailored experience for each user based on data from basic demographics (i.e. being a college student). They then use large aggregate metrics of user interactions to compose models that best represent each user.

The result?

The best possible experience for the user filled with suggested posts that would maximize the user’s attention on the app. All the decisions users make on their devices are precisely monitored to collect more data that can train algorithms to make better forecasts on users. This means that even the most minute detail, like how long we stare at a post, is analyzed. In its design, these systems only get better at keeping us on our devices the longer we use them, interact with them, and so forth. A digital copy of us essentially exists on the internet for which different companies pay top dollar. Our screens thus become a personalized billboard for us, showing us only what we want to see.

The unintended consequence of social media?

The most evident consequence of social media is the unprecedented mental health crisis particularly amongst preteen girls. One tech mogul explains that these apps are just one of many social contexts that we participate in where our instinct is to win approval and validation. The documentary notes how this instinct is normal in any environment — our school, our town, etc — but with social media we enter a social context where we now have an audience of millions, perhaps even billions, of people to perform for. The story becomes drastically different. Approval in this context becomes quantifiable and measurable (number of likes, dislikes, comments) and the correlation between social media usage and number of suicides and self-harm in young girls becomes much more plausible.

As for society at large, political polarization is a clear consequence of this business model as algorithms are programmed to present only things the user wants to see. The result is a lack of dialogue and a lopsided view of any issue.  When people only see what they want to see and hear, objective truth is trivialized and actually hidden simply because it pays more for a company to keep users engaged rather than informed. 

So given what we now know about social media, what can we do about it?

While it may seem too simplistic of a solution, logging off and even deleting social media apps is a step in the right direction. As I thought about my relationship with social media and my devices, I realized just how much they distract me. Before, I would log on an average of about three to four hours a day on my phone, checking my phone over 100 times a day. I have been following the different suggestions stated at the end of the film for quite some time such as deleting email and social media on my phone as well as turning off all irrelevant app notifications. After a few months since doing so, the results are clear: I spend on average under an hour on my phone per day and check my phone less often. I can be more present to the people around me and the work I have to do with all this freed up bandwidth. I highly recommend watching this documentary. From it, I concluded that social media and the internet can be very addicting, so we need to be cognizant of how we spend our time online. Let's set a precedent for others around us and be the change we wish to see in the world!