The Social Dilemma
By: Pragya Anand
Tags: The Social Dilemma, Human Behavior, Manipulation, Social Media, Addiction

I know so little about so many things.

Most of the opinions I form are based on opinions of people I interact with, videos I watch, people I follow on social media. My sense of reality is molded by things I see, hear and read. It has nothing to do with the truth. If we happen to fact check (which hardly any of us have time to do), we simply google the fact — google suggests exactly what we need to search (auto-complete), and redirects us to an article. That becomes the basis of our “truth”. We advocate for it passionately and anyone who doesn’t agree, is wrong.

If we just look at our parents and their generation — There is a strong chance their political, ethical and societal perspective is dramatically different from ours. Because they watch certain media channels, talk to a certain type of people and/or are living in a certain geography influenced by a certain political sentiment.

Basis our subjective “reality”, all of us have our own definition of “What is wrong with the world”.

Just for example, here is my list of the biggest global concerns I have:

· Environment is degrading at a pace which might already be irreversible

· Polarization in political views, across democracies

· The growing gap between the rich and the poor — Lack of basic human decency in how the poor get treated, be it farmers committing suicide, migrants being forced to walk home or the lack of housing, jobs and medical care for the average person

· Corruption and systemic selfishness that prevents our governments, organizations and the average person from reaching the limits of the “Good” they can put out in this world

My BIGGEST concern however is that we, as human race, are not able to agree on what the issue is, the next problem that we need to solve. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that our versions of “Truth” are so dramatically different from each other.

The question we need to ask is WHY.

Historically, humans have been able to come together and solve big issues and come out winners, because our realities have been the same.

For e.g. When India fought its long drawn independence struggle, Great Britain knew it was exploiting us (even if they had their commercial and/or racist justifications for the same), affluent Indians who were in bed with the English knew that they were doing it for their monetary benefits, and the remaining Indians were united in their cause, even if their struggles took different shape and form — violence, non-violence etc. etc.

However, if I may take an example of today’s political scenario, the “reality” of the two opposing forces is dramatically different.

On one end are the people, who point out the rising corona cases, the failing economy, the gradually rising social chaos, mob lynching, the 3000 cr. Statue, Ram mandir inauguration amid Covid etc. etc. On another end are people who justify the fall in economy (that started 8 quarters back) attributing it to Covid, the contribution of the current government in improving international relations, applaud the bravado of banning Tik-Tok and PubG as a response to the China border violence.

Why is the reality so dramatically different for the 2 sets of Indians? I do not believe either is Anti-national. The villain is different for both these parties. But why?

I found the answer in The Social Dilemma. Available on Netflix. A powerful, brave take on the root of our current major problems and the dire consequences we can expect if this is not solved somehow.

I highly recommend you watch this but if that isn’t possible, I’ll quickly summarize the documentary for your benefit:

The Google, Facebook, Twitter of the world have insanely powerful algorithms working for them to ensure we “the users” are hooked, even addicted to the content, by tapping into our very psyche. The algorithm studies what we like and dislike, and keeps us hooked to the screens by feeding us content that aligns with our thought process. We support it and strengthen its “categorization” of us by eating up the content, clicking on the “recommendations” and by going down the rabbit hole where everything we see is in line with what we think.

This social-virtual world that surrounds us, molds our reality, disconnecting us from the thoughts and reasoning of the folks we disagree with. Increasing the distance between our realities. Add to that the phenomenon of Fake news and anything can be the “truth”.

Our attention, our thought process, our realities are up for sale to the highest bidders.

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So, what can we as humans do to beat the societal manipulators who use these big Techs and their super computers to play with our realities to achieve their own commercial and political outcomes?

While the hope is that there will be some kind of data privacy regulation in place, changes in business models and big tech being held accountable for what happens on their platforms and how it impacts individuals and society; there are somethings we can do to slow down the negative effects of the social media.

Use the web apps but uninstall the mobile apps that have you addicted to the infinite content, so much so that you cannot even poop without checking your phone. Turn off notifications to reduce the time spent on these platforms. Fact check before sharing things on social media. Smell the roses, watch the sunrise through your eyes and not through the camera and form more human connections.

Talk to people who disagree with you and keep an open mind — the other person might not be right; doesn’t mean they are 100% wrong. Life is hardly ever black and white, right or wrong. What we, as a species, now need to do is to align ourselves on our realities so we can agree on the issues that we need to solve rather than waging a war against each other.

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Do not get me wrong, technology has done so many good things and life as we know it wouldn’t exist without it. Let us be grateful for these platforms who connect us to our loved ones, that provide us all the information in the world in just a click and are in a way, equalizers despite our geography, or socio-economic state. The question is not whether or not we should have technology, but what all should these trillion dollar companies (bigger than most nations’ economies), be allowed to do with this data; to hold them legally, socially and ethically liable for the impact they have on the state of the world. After all, with great power comes great responsibility.

Quoting a line from this documentary:

“Social media itself is not the existential threat. Rather, it’s the way that social media surfaces and amplifies the worst of humanity. The war, then, is not so much with Big Tech as it is with humanity’s horrible impulses”

P.S. Do watch this documentary — there was so much more I haven’t even touched upon in this article. https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/take-action/

Another video that was fairly eye opening for me — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5ePrtOTm5g