“The Social Dilemma” explores how the Internet’s most popular products work on a basic business

model of tracking users’ behavior in order to sell targeted ads and induce addiction in a vicious
cycle. The film blends interviews with tech experts, including many former employees of Silicon
Valley giants, and PSA-style dramatic scenarios illustrating the negative effects of social media on
average Americans. Among the many issues the film touches on include how tech companies have
influenced elections, ethnic violence and rates of depression and suicide.

The employee interviews are the most interesting part, as they explain how their companies
developed technology that so effectively manipulates the human psyche, and express their regrets
over what they unleashed. Their warnings are dire. In the film, former Facebook executive Tim
Kendall says his biggest short-term worry is “civil war,” while technology pioneer Jaron Lanier
warns, “If we go down the status quo for, let’s say, another 20 years, we probably destroy our
civilization through willful ignorance.”

Despite the confessionals and doom saying, however, the final recommendations to the average
consumer of these tech products are disappointingly unoriginal. These self-help suggestions
include: turn off notifications; uninstall time-wasting apps; fact-check before you share sources;
and follow people with different views than you.

Big tech companies are not likely to take films like “The Social Dilemma” as an existential threat.
Facebook, a frequent target of social media criticism, still posted record highs in audience and
revenue this year. Advertiser boycotts sparked by dissatisfaction with the company’s hate speech
policies had little serious impact, as Mark Zuckerberg successfully predicted.

Industrial engineers find ways to eliminate wastefulness in production processes. They

devise efficient systems that integrate workers, machines, materials, information, and
energy to make a product or provide a service