SOCIAL MEDIA
Social Dilemma on Netflix — How to Prevent Addiction for Youngsters?
We are being used big time. How can we prevent addiction?
“If you don’t pay for the product, YOU are the product”
— Tristan Harris
We already know nothing in our broken-down world is for free. And the things that are for free are not appreciated by us. It’s the price we pay for having broken down our world. How do we live with that?
In this story, I will tell you about the messy reality of social media as brought to you by the Netflix documentary Social Dilemma. And I will share the medicine I use in my life to stay awake and prevent addiction.
And how I share it with the children around me.
Manipulation and Addiction
Recently, I read a Dutch story on Elle.com about Social Dilemma. And gosh, it paints a scary picture of life. Real-life. That’s the scariest of all.
What’s happening?
The Netflix documentary Social Dilemma puts its finger on a giant sore spot. We are being used big time. We are manipulated into becoming addicted.
Tristan Harris, whom I quoted at the top, is a former employee of Google. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, even Google earn millions over our backs.
No news, you say. I already know it. When I Googled once for curtains I see adverts for curtains all the time.
Well, it’s shocking to see diverse former employees explain how it works exactly. And we are not only being used to make advertisements more adapted to our person.
It goes way further than that!
Jeff Seibert, a former manager at Twitter says: “We collect everything. What picture you are looking at, how long you are watching it. Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, they all know if you are lonely. Or depressed. They know when you are watching pictures of your ex. They know what you are doing late at night.”
Pfew. Confronting!
Made into an Avatar
And if it’s not bad enough that some unknown employee knows all my intimate details, they are using it against me. Why? To make me keep scrolling. To get me addicted.
Aza Raskin, someone who worked for Firefox and Mozzilla Lab, says: “Most people think our data is being sold. But it’s not interesting for Facebook to sell our data.”
Instead, they are building a kind of avatar-like persona of me. This model is adding up everything I ever liked, watched, and connected with. They are finetuning my model to predict what I need to see to make me scroll as long as possible.
Because the longer I scroll, the more I’m worth to advertisers. Scrolling brings in the cash.
In the documentary, the algorithm is being played by Mad Men actor Vincent Kartheiser. He shows us what a teenage boy sees in his feed. Skateboard film. Sneaker advert. Photos of the girl whose posts he always likes.
And when for a moment he aborts his screen, the ping sounds. “Your ex has a new relationship.” “You have been tagged in a photograph.”
Psychology is the weapon.
We are the prey.
Harris compares our phones with the slot machines in Las Vegas. When you see your phone, you think it might have something for you. So you pick it up and play.
The system works so well, that even the former boss of Pinterest Tim Kendall admits that he was secretly hiding in a closet at home, Checking his mails and surfing Pinterest. Instead of playing with his kids.
He’s falling for it, although he knows exactly how the wheels spin.
Depression and Anxiety
The damage these algorithms are doing is really very serious.
“When the researchers looked at underlying processes that might be linked with social media use and depression, they found 40 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys had experience of online harassment or cyberbullying. Disrupted sleep was reported by 40 percent of girls compared with 28 percent of boys. Anxiety and poor sleep are both linked to depression.”
And we don’t even talk about what it does to their body image, self-esteem, and appearance.
Fake News
Social media are a real catalyst for fake news and complot theories. Harris says that fake news spread six times faster than real news.
Why? In the article on Elle.com they say the truth is boring.
And all the while, the bubbles people live in are getting thicker by the minute. People are not able to see over their walls anymore. They cannot have compassion with someone different. Someone who has a different perspective.
When you are fed your own truth all the time, you think it’s true.
And if a story about child-abuse from a pizza place is fed to people who are all the time looking for chemtrails and UFOs, there is a chance someone will pick up a gun and storm in to ‘save the children’.
Former Pinterest-manager Kendall says he really fears for civil war if some things won’t change quickly. Harris says: “We made it this way. It’s our responsibility to change it.”
And to the question, if the companies will ever change their lucrative business model to make it more human again, he says: they’ll have to.
The CEOs in Silicon Valley know everything about this already. It’s their everyday life. But is there anything we can personally do not to be trapped? Or is there anything we can do to help our children not to be trapped?
What Can We Do?
Many will say, we have to teach our children about social media. Yes, there’s that. Social media can definitely be used for change in a good way as well. It needs conscious use. And being aware of the pitfalls.
We can defy the algorithms. Look consciously and curiously for other things than the ones they are presenting to us. We can read stories that make us feel slightly uncomfortable because the writer has such a different view. We can connect to local people when we are traveling. We can use all of our senses consciously. We can use our intuition to keep an open mind. And we can be immensely curious!
And there’s more than our virtual, avatar life.
What we give attention to will grow. So we can value our own real, messy, complex, and oh-so-beautiful life again in the real world and give it the attention it deserves.
The more we invest in our lives outside of the virtual world, the more social media will lose our grip on us. It’s time to feel our bodies again. To teach our children that we have a body. We can process our emotions with it to help overcome depression and anxiety.
It might be time to include mindfulness into the classroom. Small nudges. Small exercises during the day. Variation in energy. It might make all the difference in the world.
My Own Steps
This is what I do in my life.
1 Connecting to nature big time. I started this story with: “Nothing in our broken-down world is for free.” Well, some things are free. The wind on my cheeks. The sighting of a squirrel burying his nuts. The sunset. My hands feeling the fertile soil of my garden.
Birdsong is keeping me aware of life so I can fully live it.
With our children, we can connect to nature as well. We can teach outdoors so the elements will keep them grounded and add to the wisdom we want to share. Trees, wind, water. They will all help to bring a message across.
2 Trying to be conscious of my body all the time. When I’m drawn into my work and my writing, I cannot feel my body very well. So whenever I notice that happening, I stand up. I stretch. I shake. And I tell myself very loudly that life is happening out there. That I should be living it. For me, these are signs that I need to stop my work for now and LIVE.
We can do this with children as well. When they are sitting down for too long we can get them out of their chairs. Shake their bodies and make them aware of their feet on the ground. We can laugh out loud. We can change the energy by making our teaching programs full of variation.
Serious stuff. Laughter. Being active with our hands. Mathematics outdoors with nature examples to make the knowledge stick. Use our imaginations. And if you’re stuck for ideas, just reach out in the comments.
3 Giving lots of time to inspiration. It took me a while to get into my personal best routine. But now that I’m here, I have lots of time to spend on getting inspired. I sleep a lot. And in that time, my inspiration often flows, unawares.
We try to be an example for the kids. Living our lives according to our own values and sharing stories about that. We are not retired yet, we still need to work for our living, but time with our grandchildren is important.
We build huts in the woods. We pick up pine cones and we count them. Making sums as complicated as can be. We take them home and put them in water. Show them how the cones open and close.
I take my time eating and make them taste their food as well. Asking them to describe the taste in colors. Or smells.
Little exercises during the day. And they don’t even see them as exercises. Whenever a difficult subject comes up, I find a little film about it and show them on my phone. About sharks. Or lava. And they’ll become curious beings…
4 Connecting to my loved ones. When I started to design the life I really wanted, I drew a circle on paper. I put myself in the middle and my family, friends, and acquaintances around. And then I prioritized. I sometimes repeat the exercise when I feel that my life has changed course slightly and I want new, conscious priorities.
We give priority to Mike’s daughters, the grandchildren, and my mum. They are real-life for us! We also do cool stuff with friends. Or we travel together. Staying somewhere for a longer time so we can go in deep and connect to the locals.
I save a lot of time not going to group-gatherings where people just talk about illnesses and complain. And the more I’m aware of my body and my connection to nature, the more my time seems to expand.
Dear friends, awareness is all. Please don’t let your life pass you by. Please don’t let the silicon valley CEOs get rich over our scrolling, distraction-seeking backs. We have a life to live. We have an impact to make on our planet. We have to spread our love widely.
And we have to show our children how we do it. So, let’s just do it.
And if you want to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter. Or somewhere in the world, watching a family of squirrels…
Thank you, Mike, for adding your wise energy to my words.
Further Reading
More links to connect with me: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, ManyStories or my website.
© Désirée Driesenaar
