This is a grimly riveting significant documentary which derives much of its power from the fact that virtually all contributors were, major (and I mean, major) players with the social media aristocracy of Facebook/Google/Twitter/Instagram etc etc.
It was described as a documentary/drama hybrid which is not normally a good recommendation but, slightly surprisingly, this (largely) worked – there was dramatic focus on a family and the addiction of young people to social media, attempt to get off, radicalization with bad consequences – and I am sure I noticed a flash from one of the vivid ‘results of addiction’ scene from Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream – one of the very few films that seem to well show the nature and power of addiction; the other one of course, Trainspotting. A top academic expert on addiction revealed how worried she was about her children and also made the point (I think it was her) that, in business terms, the only two industries that refer to the people as ‘users’ are social media and illegal drug manufacterers.
The other stylistic ‘tic’ was the pre-interview chit chat with the subjects before filming officially began – initially fun but after a while, irritating. Let’s hear what they’ve got to say!
But there was one very effective dramatic element and that was the depiction as to how Facebook, through its algorithms, made sure that you kept on viewing, saw the sort of things that would make you continue viewing or lead you to other areas that may well be of interest to you. It was grimly riveting to see how interest in one area could so quickly lead to other areas, related but often much darker e.g. a tendency to show an interest in say ‘climate change is a hoax’ could, very easily, allow one to be guided to all sorts of other very dark conspiracy theory areas. This was shown dramatically by having three operators in front of an avatar of the user, deciding what he should see to make him react and with the advertisement being used being the monetization factor for the action. But of course using actors made it more appealingly personal; in reality it is a computer algorithm – very smart, very fast and, it seems, designed so that the more the media is used, the better the algorithm becomes at selecting what is to be seen – truly the development of artificial intelligence. This – the profit motive – by the end, came across as THE single most important factor and the element which drives the whole Hydra-headed social media machine.
The talking heads who made up the film were all those who had been very major players up until a few years ago; they knew and could see what was and is happening. And it was particularly chilling/ironical/significant that, in the credit sequence chats, when asked about they and their families use of social media, all of them said that they controlled/banned social media use for their children. Some said it should only be used independently at High School level and not middle school – and grim statistics about the exponential rise of self-harm admission to hospitals and suicide rates among middle school students could be shown to have started when media became ubiquitous and utterly central in peoples’ lives. Their inside knowledge and experience also showed that the creators – of whom they were examples –knew exactly what they were doing and what they wanted to achieve. Apparently very many major players did and still do go through the Stanford Persuasive Technical Lab whose name tells us exactly what they were trying to do. These people were, and are, very smart indeed – and their youth and that of most of those still at the forefront of these industries, is a major element in the problem as young, sometimes very young, people, are temperamentally/socially/brain-development-wise even, naturally predisposed to optimism and that ‘all is for the best…’. And it was clear that the level at which the algorithms work is very deep indeed – it’s not just superficial appeal, although that it seems is the initial hook, but the way that the algorithms work very deep in the brain, the user being totally unaware of it but being, perhaps only subliminally aware, of the dopamine rush they get when they see a particularly high number of likes. And, as was pointed out, socially humans are social creatures and the views and opinions of people whom we are with are naturally important. But when you are talking about the opinions of hundreds of thousands of people, millions even, then are we able to cope with this?
The need for this digital approval was well described as being a ‘digital pacifier’ and it was suggested that because of this need for approval, the generation that has grown up totally with these tools (Generation Z)are now very insecure ‘fragile’ was used as they are wholly used to, and need, constant validation and acceptance. And perhaps this is one reason why the ‘need’ for safe spaces has arisen because, according to algorithms, you will not see images/topics/ideas that you do not like (in every sense of the word) and so when something disturbing and dark comes along, you are not able to cope with it. It’s particularly noticeable in universities where more and more ‘trigger warnings’ are given before lectures/tutorials for the benefit of those who might be disturbed by what they have to read and process as they are not used to dealing with ideas and experiences outside of their own personal digital realm.
At the end, an analogy was drawn with The Truman Show (a film that becomes more prescient almost day by day) where extreme social media users are all in their own Truman World – the only world they know is their own individual on and they do not have any idea of a different type of world outside of their own boundaries set by their likes and responses to what they like and what it is known they will like.
It was clear by the end, I felt, that the creators of this world know what they are doing and should be held responsible. But perhaps the ultimate irony is that, in the COVID-threatened world of today, social media use has, necessarily, become even more prevalent and central in people’s lives.
What to do? Well, start by watching this film – and then decide.