The Social Dilemma

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Social Dilemma is a 2020 American docudrama film

The Social Dilemma
directed by Jeff Orlowski and written by Orlowski, Davis
Coombe, and Vickie Curtis. The documentary examines how
social media's design nurtures addiction to maximize profit, and
its ability to manipulate people's views, emotions, and behavior
and spread conspiracy theories and disinformation. The film
also examines social media's effect on mental health, in
particular, the mental health of adolescents and rising teen
suicide rates.

The film features interviews with many former employees of

social media companies along with academic researchers. Some
of the interviews also note that social media platforms and big
tech companies have provided some positive change for society
as well. The interviewees discuss social media's role in political
polarization in the United States and the influence that
algorithmic advertising has had on political radicalization. The
film also examines how social media platforms have impacted
the spread of fake news, and how governments have used
social media as a tool for propaganda. These interviews are Promotional poster
presented alongside scripted dramatizations of a teenager's
Directed by Jeff Orlowski
social media addiction. These dramatizations draw attention to
the rising concern of the radicalization of youth on the internet. Written by Davis Coombe
Vickie Curtis
Synopsis Jeff Orlowski
Produced by Larissa Rhodes
The film dives into the psychological underpinnings and the
manipulation techniques by which, it claims, social media and Starring Tristan Harris
technology companies addict users. People's online activity is Aza Raskin
watched, tracked, and measured by these companies, who then
Jeff Seibert
use this data to build artificial intelligence models that predict
the actions of their users. Tristan Harris, former Google design Justin Rosenstein
ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, Shoshana Zuboff
explains in the documentary that there are three main goals of
Jaron Lanier
tech companies:
Skyler Gisondo
1. The engagement goal: to increase usage and to Kara Hayward
make sure users continue scrolling.
Vincent Kartheiser
2. The growth goal: to ensure users are coming back
and inviting friends that invite even more friends. Anna Lembke
3. The advertisement goal: to make sure that while the Cinematography John Behrens
above two goals are happening, the companies are
 also making as much money as possible from Jonathan Pope
advertisements.
Edited by Davis Coombe
Harris summed this up with the warning: "If you're not paying Music by Mark A. Crawford
for the product, you are the product", paraphrasing earlier
Production Exposure Labs
insights from Television Delivers People, Tom Johnson and companies
Andrew Lewis.[1] Argent Pictures
The Space
Harris likens the manipulation tactics used in technology to
Program
magic: how do you persuade people by manipulating what they
see and how can this psychology be integrated into Distributed by Netflix
technology? Release dates January 26, 2020
(Sundance)
Another interviewee, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at
NYU Stern School of Business, brings up the concerns of September 9, 2020
mental health in relation to social media. There has been an (United States)
increase in depression and suicide rates among teens and young
Running time 94 minutes
adults since the early 2000s[2] and Haidt states that this pattern
points to the year social media was made available on mobile Country United States
phones. The dangers of fake news are also discussed in the Language English
documentary. Harris argues that this is a "disinformation-for-
profit business model" and that companies make more money by allowing "unregulated messages to reach
anyone for the best price". According to a study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
fake news on Twitter spreads six times faster than true news.[3] Wikipedia is mentioned as a neutral
landscape that shows all users the exact same page without tailoring it for the individual or monetizing it.

Orlowski uses a cast of actors to portray this in the dramatization of the issues covered in the film. The
narrative features a family of five, portraying various perspectives of social media usage and its influence
on their daily lives. The main character, Ben, is a teenager who falls deeper into social media addiction
under the manipulation of the Engagement, Growth, and Advertisement AIs. Cassandra, Ben's sister,
believes that one can stay connected to the Internet without a cellphone and she represents individuals free
from the manipulation of social media and technology, unlike other members of her family. Isla, the
youngest daughter in the family, represents how teenage girls fall into depression and lose their sense of
identity due to social media.[4]

One scene in the narrative shows the family at the dinner table. The mother proposes that everyone keep
their cell phones locked in a Kitchen Safe prior to eating dinner but when a notification buzzes on
someone's phone, Isla gets up from the table and tries to open the Kitchen Safe. She resorts to shattering the
Kitchen Safe with a tool after a few failed attempts, retrieving her own phone but damaging Ben's phone
screen in the process. In return for a new phone screen, Ben promises his mother that he will refrain from
using the phone for a week. At the end of the scene, Cassandra is seen sitting alone at the dinner table.
Halfway through the agreed time period, Ben breaks his promise, and progressively becomes addicted to
social media. The AIs behind the screen previously analyzed that pushing "Extreme Center" political
content on his social media page has a 62.3% chance of long-term engagement for Ben. Once Ben starts
watching one video recommended by the AIs, he becomes so immersed in the content containing
propaganda and conspiracy theories that it affects his daily life, leading him to skip soccer practice and
disregard friends and family. Ultimately, towards the end of the film, Ben gets involved in an "Extreme
Center" rally that escalates and becomes violent. He gets pinned down and detained by the police when he
tries to make his way to Cassandra, who spots Ben in the crowd on her way to school.
The interviewees restate their fear about the role of artificial intelligence in social media and the influence
these platforms have on society, arguing that "something needs to change." Aza Raskin, a former employee
at Firefox and Mozilla and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, explains that Silicon Valley
started around the "idea of humane technology," but companies have strayed away from the original
intentions of technology.

In the ending credits of the documentary, the interviewees propose ways the audience can take action to
fight back, such as turning off notifications, never accepting recommended videos on YouTube, using
search engines that do not retain search history, and establishing rules in the house on cell phone usage.

Themes
The Social Dilemma centers on the social and cultural impact of social media usage on regular users, with a
focus on algorithmically enabled forms of behavior modification and psychological manipulation.
Additionally, the film depicts an array of related themes including but not limited to political manipulation,
technological addiction, echo chambers, fake news, depression and anxiety.[5] The clips throughout the
documentary focus on one example of a family acted out by the cast to convey the vast consequences of
social media usage impacting their daily lives.

One interviewee, Tim Kendall, the former director of Facebook, spoke up on the alarming goal of
Facebook: updating the app with increased addictiveness for a consistent boost in engagement.[6] A former
Google designer Tristan Harris compares the addiction level to a "Vegas slot machine" as users "check their
phones hoping that they have a notification, as it's like they are pulling the lever of a slot machine hoping
they hit the jackpot." [7] As the goal of social media compared to when platforms were first introduced has
changed and skyrocketed in popularity amongst society during the transition from the 20th to the 21st
century, social media, as Harris describes it, is no longer considered a tool.[7] Unlike tools used exclusively
when needed by society, social media platforms strive to enhance advanced methods to gravitate users to
click on the apps for additional content. The immersion of users in this app exposed to countless
information, according to Kendall, could potentially lead to tension within society.[6] Misinformation and
fake news are commonly spread, and users unable to distinguish between fake and real news results in
differences in ideology and societal division.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author, highlighted the influence of social media on depression
and anxiety, especially in younger adolescents. The documentary reported statistics on depression, self-
harm, and suicide leading to hospitalization, specifically in American teen girls resulting from social media
use. The number of hospitalizations remained stable until around 2011 and rose a significant 62 percent in
older teen girls (ages 15–19) and up 189 percent in younger teen girls (ages 10–14) since 2009 in the
United States. Additionally, the same pattern is shown in the rates of suicide, which had increased 70
percent in older teen girls and 151 percent in younger teen girls compared to 2001–2010. According to
Haidt's interview, people born after 1996 have grown up in a society where social media usage is the norm,
thus resulting in consistent exposure to overwhelming content from a young age. Early exposure to these
platforms has been one reason for the dramatic rise of depression and self-harm.             

Production

Inspiration

Jeff Orlowski, who is mostly known for his work in Chasing Coral and Chasing Ice, began production for
this documentary in 2018 and concluded it in 2019. When asked where his inspiration came from during
the film's panel at Deadline's Contenders Documentary event, Orlowski says that he has "always been
curious about big systemic and societal challenges." He came to believe that "invisibly, a handful of
designers in Silicon Valley are writing code that is shaping the lives of billions of people around the
planet."[8]

We were drawn to tell the stories of our changing glaciers and changing coral reefs because
they were powerful signs of a huge global issue facing humanity: climate change. When we
started talking with Tristan Harris and the Center for Humane Technology, we saw a direct
parallel between the threat posed by the fossil fuel industry and the threat posed by our
technology platforms. Harris calls this "the climate change of culture," an invisible force that is
shaping how the world gets its information and understands truth. Our hope has always been
to work on big issues, and we now see the "social dilemma" as a problem beneath all our other
problems.

— Jeff Orlowski, FAQ: The Social Dilemma, https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/faqs/

The film's graphics, animation, & visual effects were made by Mass FX Media (https://www.massfxmedia.
com/) and produced by Netflix.

The film's genre is science & natural docs.

Casting

Interviewees

Tristan Harris, former Google design ethicist,[9] co-founder and CEO of Apture (2007),[10]
and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology;[11] co-host of podcast Your Undivided
Attention with Aza Raskin[12]
Tim Kendall, former director of monetization at Facebook,[6] former President of Pinterest,
and CEO of Moment (a mobile application that tracks screen time)[13]
Jaron Lanier, American computer philosophy writer, computer scientist, visual artist, and
composer of contemporary classical music; author of Ten Arguments for Deleting Your
Social Media Accounts Right Now (2018)[14]
Roger McNamee, early investor at Facebook,[15] author of Zucked: Waking Up to the
Facebook Catastrophe (2019), and cofounder of venture capital firm Elevation Partners[16]
Aza Raskin, former head of user experience at Mozilla Labs and creative lead for Firefox;[17]
co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology[11] and founder of Massive Health;[18]
inventor of the infinite scroll[19]
Justin Rosenstein, former Facebook engineering manager,[20] former Google product
manager,[21] and co-founder of Asana[22] and One Project
Shoshana Zuboff, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, author of The Age of
Surveillance Capitalism (2019)[23]
Jeff Seibert, former head of product at Twitter,[24] serial tech entrepreneur, and co-founder of
Digits[25]
Anna Lembke, medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford University School of
Medicine[26]
Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist at the New York University Stern School of Business,[27]
author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion
 (2012) and coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad
Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018)[28]
Sandy Parakilas, former platform operations manager at Facebook[29] and former product
manager at Uber[30][31]
Cathy O'Neil, data scientist and author of Weapons of Math Destruction (2016)[32]
Randima Fernando, former product manager at Nvidia, former executive director at Mindful
Schools, and co-founder and executive director of Center For Humane Technology[33]
Joe Toscano, former experience design consultant at Google and author of Automating
Humanity (2018)[34]
Bailey Richardson, early team member of Instagram and partner at People & Company[35]
Rashida Richardson, assistant professor of law and political science at Northeastern
University School of Law[36] and former director of policy research at AI Now Institute[37][38]
Guillaume Chaslot, former software engineer at Google (YouTube) and founder of
AlgoTransparency[39]
Renée Diresta, technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory[40] and
former head of policy at Data for Democracy
Cynthia M. Wong, former senior Internet researcher at Human Rights Watch[41]
Alex Roetter, former senior vice president of engineering at Twitter[42]
Lynn Fox, former director of corporate PR and Mac PR at Apple,[43] former executive of
corporate communications at Google[44]

Actors

Skyler Gisondo as "Ben"[45]

Kara Hayward as "Cassandra"[45]
Sophia Hammons as "Isla"[45]
Chris Grundy as "Step-Dad"
Barbara Gehring as "Mother"[46]
Vincent Kartheiser as "Artificial Intelligence"[45]
Catalina Garayoa as "Rebecca"
Sergio Villarreal as "Luiz"
Laura Obiols as "Vendetta"
Vic Alejandro as "Police Officer"

Narrative casting by Jenny Jue[46]

Soundtrack

All music is composed by Mark Crawford.

Through the use of "human-produced" and mechanical sounds, as Mark Crawford described in The Social
Dilemma interview, he displayed the alarming impacts of social media through this soundtrack.[47] There
was an overall emphasis on the concept of "dilemma" pertaining to the documentary throughout each
song.[47]

No. Title Length

 1. "Logos" 0:34
2. "A Totally Normal World" 2:31
3. "Am I Really That Bad" 0:49
4. "Server Room" 3:45
5. "A Call to Arms" 2:00
6. "Manipulated" 2:28
7. "Magic Tricks" 1:49
8. "Hooked in the Classroom" 1:09
9. "Growth Hacking" 1:44
10. "Programmed at a Deeper Level" 1:29
11. "Addicted" 1:44
12. "Kitchen Safe" 0:53
13. "Family Dinner" 0:57
14. "The Kids are Not Alright" 0:34
15. "The Bet" 1:12
16. "Perceptions of Beauty" 2:22
17. "Theremin Lullaby" 1:30
18. "Time Offline" 0:53
19. "Hominid Brains" 2:12
20. "The AI's Are Losing" 0:39
21. "Machine Learning" 1:33
22. "Late Night Snack" 0:52
23. "Checkmate Humanity" 1:49
24. "The Sliding Scale" 2:51
25. "Exponential Hearsay" 3:54
26. "Myanmar" 3:09
27. "Caught in the Crowd" 4:37
28. "Rapid Degration of Society" 3:16
29. "Senate Hearing" 5:00
30. "Justin Drops the Mic" 4:02
31. "Shut it Down" 3:09
32. "Welcome to the Drum Machine" 2:02
33. "I Put a Spell on You" 2:53
Total length: 60:10

Release
The Social Dilemma premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2020, and was released
worldwide on Netflix on September 9, 2020.[48] The documentary went on to be viewed in 38,000,000
homes within the first 28 days of release.[49] It won two awards out of seven nominations at the 73rd
Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards in 2021.[50]
The film is approximately 94 minutes long and can only be accessed through having a Netflix subscription.
However, a free 40 minute version of the film can be accessed by requesting it through the official page of
The Social Dilemma.[51]

Reception

Critical response

The Social Dilemma received generally positive reviews. The mostly positive analyses of The Social
Dilemma conclude that the film is thorough and scales down abstract concepts to an accessible level,
however, negative critics emphasize that the dramatized screenplay reduces the impact of the film's
messaging. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 85% based
on 66 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Clear-eyed and
comprehensive, The Social Dilemma presents a sobering analysis of our data-mined present."[52] On
Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on nine critics, indicating
"generally favourable reviews".[53]

The film is commonly praised for its portrayal of how severe the addictive effects of social media can be,
and, by featuring industry insiders, exposing to a wide audience the strategies to increase usage and data
extraction at play by tech companies. ABC News's Mark Kennedy called the film "an eye-opening look
into the way social media is designed to create addiction and manipulate our behaviour, told by some of the
very people who supervised the systems at places like Facebook, Google, and Twitter".[54] Nell Minow of
RogerEbert.com noted that the film "asks fundamental and existential questions" of humanity's potential
self-destruction through its own use of computer technology, and praised its "exceptional" use of
confessions from leaders and key players in the social media industry.[55]

Other critics pointed out the shocking piece of information that the film brings forth about how strategic
social media companies are in terms of keeping its users on their apps for as long as possible. Devika Girish
from The New York Times, states that “The Social Dilemma” is remarkably effective in sounding the alarm
about the incursion of data mining and manipulative technology into our social lives and beyond.[56]” In a
rare defence of the film’s oft-denounced dramatizations, John Naughton of The Guardian comments on the
fictional side of the movie which shows a “normal” American family being dragged down the rabbit hole
that is the internet and our phones. Naughton states that “the fictional strand is necessary because the
biggest difficulty facing critics of an industry that treats users as lab rats is that of explaining to the rats
what’s happening to them while they are continually diverted by the treats (in this case dopamine highs)
being delivered by the smartphones that the experimenters control.” [57]

Elizabeth Pankova adds a new insight to the reviews, she mentions that "none of the information in the film
is particularly new" but in her opinion what makes The Social Dilemma remarkable and distinguishable is
"the purveyors of this information: the remorseful, self-aware warriors turned conscientious objectors of
Silicon Valley."[58]

However, most critics often cite the dramatic reenactments featured in the film as the main source of
discontent. Girish Devika from The New York Times points out that the fictional narrative Orlowski
implemented to illustrate the documentary's main points about social media's influence on one's mental
health.

Nell Minow of RogerEbert.com stated that "even the wonderfully talented Skyler Gisondo cannot make a
sequence work where he plays a teenager seduced by extremist disinformation, and the scenes with Vincent
Kartheiser embodying the formulas that fight our efforts to pay attention to anything outside of the online
world are just silly."[59] Casey Newton of The Verge argued that the dramatized segments of the film are
"ridiculous[.] And the ominous piano score that persuades every scene, rather than ratcheting up the
tension, gives it all the feeling of camp." [60] The film was also criticized for being simplistic, and not
including longstanding assessments of social media. Pranav Malhotra of Slate stated that the film "plays up
well-worn dystopian narratives surrounding technology," and "depend[s] on tired (and not helpful) tropes
about technology as the sole cause of harm, especially to children." He also criticized the film for failing to
acknowledge activists and commentators who have long-criticized social media, saying that "it could have
also given space to critical internet and media scholars like Safiya Noble, Sarah T. Roberts, and Siva
Vaidhyanathan, just to name a few, who continue to write about how broader structural inequalities are
reflected in and often amplified the practices of big technology companies." [61] The review concludes by
admonishing the "uncritical" presentation of another dystopian narrative lacking nuance.

In response to the reviews and criticisms that Social Dilemma received, Jeff Orlowski the director of the
documentary mentioned that his documentary was   “an insider’s perspective” of Silicon Valley as a
Stanford University graduate.

In his Interview in CPH:DOX he mentioned that “I think that countless filmmakers and especially
documentary makers are looking for impact through their work.”. He later added “Often, what filmmakers
don’t have access to is resources or teams to be able to do campaigns with their films.”[62]

Industry response and The Social Dilemma's impacts

Facebook released a statement on its about page that the film "gives a distorted view of how social media
platforms work to create a convenient scapegoat for what are difficult and complex societal problems".[63]

CNBC reported that social media users are doubting if they should continue using Facebook or Instagram,
after watching The Social Dilemma. However, when Facebook was asked about the possibility of decline
in its users, Facebook refused to answer or give any comments on the subject.[64]
Mozilla employees Ashley Boyd and Audrey Hingle note that while the "making, release and popularity of
The Social Dilemma represents a major milestone towards [the goal of] building a movement of internet
users who understand social media's impact and who demand better from platforms", the film would have
benefited from featuring more diverse voices.[65]

Accolades

Date of
Award Category Recipient(s) Result Ref.
ceremony

ACE Eddie April 17, Best Edited Documentary [66]

Davis Coombe Nominated
Awards 2021 (Feature)

ASCAP Screen May 17, TV documentary Score of the [67]

Mark A. Crawford Nominated
Music Awards 2021 Year
British Academy April 11, Jeff Orlowski and [68]
Best Documentary Nominated
Film Awards 2021 Larissa Rhodes

BFE Cut Above March 5, Best Edited Single Documentary [69]

Davis Coombe Won
Awards 2021 or Non-Fiction Programme

Boulder
March 8, The Social [70][71]
International Film Best Social Impact Film Won
2020 Dilemma
Festival
Chicago Film
Critics December The Social [72]
Best Documentary Nominated
Association 21, 2020 Dilemma
Awards

Mark A. Crawford,
Outstanding Achievement in
Cinema Audio April 17, Scott R. Lewis, [73]
Sound Mixing for a Motion Nominated
Society Awards 2021 Mark Venezia, and
Picture – Documentary
Jason Butler

The Social
Audience Choice Prize Nominated
Dilemma
Cinema Eye March 9, Simon Barker, [74]
Honors Awards 2021 Outstanding Achievement in Matthew Poliquin,
Nominated
Graphic Design or Animation Matt Schultz, and
Shawna Schultz

The Social
Critics' Choice Best Documentary Feature Nominated
November Dilemma
Documentary [75]
16, 2020 The Social
Awards Best Political Documentary Nominated
Dilemma
Motion Picture
Outstanding Achievement in Richard Gould,
Sound Editors April 16, [76]
Sound Editing – Feature James Spencer, Nominated
Golden Reel 2021
Documentary and Andrea Gard
Awards

Primetime Emmy September Larissa Rhodes, [50]

Outstanding Documentary or
Awards 12, 2021 Daniel Wright, and Nominated
Nonfiction Special
Stacey Piculell

Outstanding Directing for a

Documentary/Nonfiction Jeff Orlowski Nominated
Program
Vickie Curtis,
Outstanding Writing for a
Davis Coombe, Won
Nonfiction Program
and Jeff Orlowski
 Outstanding Cinematography for John Behrens and
Nominated
a Nonfiction Program Jonathan Pope
Outstanding Music Composition
for a Documentary Series or
Mark A. Crawford Nominated
Special (Original Dramatic
Score)

Outstanding Picture Editing for a

Davis Coombe Won
Nonfiction Program

Outstanding Sound Editing for a Richard Gould,

Nonfiction or Reality Program James Spencer, Nominated
(Single or Multi-Camera) and Andrea Gard
San Diego Film
January 11, The Social [77]
Critics Society Best Documentary Runner-up
2021 Dilemma
Awards

St. Louis Film

Critics January 18, The Social [78]
Best Documentary Film Nominated
Association 2021 Dilemma
Awards

Advertising, Media & PR –

May 18, [79]
Webby Awards Branded Content – Politics & Exposure Labs Won
2021
Advocacy

See also
Film portal

Internet portal

Psychology portal
 Algorithmic radicalization
Body dysmorphic disorder
Communal reinforcement
Cyberpsychology
Digital citizen
Digital media use and mental health
Doomscrolling
Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal
False consensus effect
Filter bubble
Group polarization
Persuasive technology
Problematic social media use
Search engine manipulation effect
Selective exposure theory
Social media and psychology
Surveillance capitalism
Targeted advertising

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Further reading
The Social Network
The Internet's Own Boy
The Great Hack

External links
Official website (http://www.thesocialdilemma.com)
The Social Dilemma (https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224) on Netflix
The Social Dilemma (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11464826/) at IMDb
The Social Dilemma (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_social_dilemma) at Rotten
Tomatoes

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