Crimson
Telly Talk Dream Maker
THE SOCIAL DILEMMA (2020, Netflix)
I'm not much of a social media user -- I have an obligatory Facebook account I rarely look at, I use Instagram casually and Twitter passively -- but I was surprised at how uneasy this documentary made me. I was of the vague belief that social media platforms are tools, not unlike the telephone, and that any problems that arise are due to how people use them. This documentary demolished that, given how deeply these platforms are designed to be manipulative and addictive. If the documentary was focused on "experts" and academics, I might have dismissed it as alarmism; but when the very people who designed these tools talk about how dangerous they are, it's hard not to take it seriously.
I immediately turned of notifications of nearly every app on my phone.
I'm not much of a social media user -- I have an obligatory Facebook account I rarely look at, I use Instagram casually and Twitter passively -- but I was surprised at how uneasy this documentary made me. I was of the vague belief that social media platforms are tools, not unlike the telephone, and that any problems that arise are due to how people use them. This documentary demolished that, given how deeply these platforms are designed to be manipulative and addictive. If the documentary was focused on "experts" and academics, I might have dismissed it as alarmism; but when the very people who designed these tools talk about how dangerous they are, it's hard not to take it seriously.
I immediately turned of notifications of nearly every app on my phone.
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