No, Social Media Isn’t Destroying Civilization
Netflix’s The Social Dilemma tells a horror story about how social media is creating political extremism and driving children into depression and addiction. But it never even hints that these ills have causes outside of our use of Facebook and Snapchat — and the possibility that what we see on these platforms portrays the reality of a sick society.
Still from The Social Dilemma. (Netflix)
What harm could social media do? Civil war! The end of civilization as we know it! That is the verdict of Silicon Valley’s renegade luminaries, lined up in the new Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. As former Google employee Tristan Harris puts it, in a very TED Talks axiom, social media threatens “checkmate on humanity.”
If you think all that sounds like moral panic, you wouldn’t be far wrong. The dead giveaway is the enormous gap between the purported problem and the solutions — tax data collection, realign financial incentives, and no devices before bedtime. This is a documentary made for worried parents, #resistance liberals, and #NeverTrump Republicans.
All the villains of the liberal techlash are here: fake news, Russian cyberattacks, foreign dictators, “bad actors,” political polarization, and depressed teenagers. The Social Dilemma trundles out one jaded platform boss after another to deliver this familiar homily, dramatized with a background story about a suburban family from Anytown, USA torn apart by social media addiction.
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