Within the first ten minutes or so of Jeff Orlowski’s new docudrama The Social Dilemma, the director poses a (seemingly) simple question to his interview subjects. Most of them held, at one time, a top position at one or more tech giant companies: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. He asks, why is social media – and the internet more broadly – responsible for so many of our current society’s ills? Every single person hesitates before coming up with a response. No one provides the simple, one-word answer: Money. To be more accurate, no one says it that bluntly. In truth, almost the whole of The Social Dilemma is structured around exploring how the ruthless ways these companies monetize people’s attention has caused immeasurable harm to civil society and our mental health.
