The Social Dilemma shook up the world. Here’s how to continue
Awareness is the first step of change. Bridging the gap from awareness to action is the next step. Here’s how.
For a lot of people, The Social Dilemma was an eye opener. Why? Because so far, only a limited amount of people have looked under the hood of the business model behind social networks. The film revealed the techniques with which social media platforms build their products to lure users repeatedly back into their feeds — without any consideration if the users want this or not. By translating this topic into a visual documentary, the makers unmasked these techniques to the screens of over 195 million Netflix subscribers.
When we asked our Instagram community if they’ve already watched the documentary, 62% said that they haven’t. So here’s a small recap in case you haven’t seen it yet:
The Social Dilemma is a 90-minute investigative documentary created by the community behind the Center of Humane Technology — a movement of former tech executives from Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest dedicated to bringing awareness to the harms of social media to our physical and mental health, relationships and democracy. It explores the deliberately created addictive features of social media platforms.
Examples of addictive design features are:
- likes (to increase engagement for both the ‘liker’ and the ‘liked’),
- push notifications (to create uncertainty, approval and FOMO) and
- bottomless feeds (or ‘infinite scroll’; to endlessly scroll through freshly loaded content without reaching the end of the page).The film highlights the negative effects of social media on our mental, physical and relationship health. It even goes one step further and shows the negative consequences for our society and democracy.
Change starts with awareness
Sounds pretty dark, doesn’t it? And that’s also the intention of the documentary: to shake social media users up and bring our collective attention to the unfair tricks of tech companies to manipulate our behavior. That’s the first step of change: becoming aware of the problem. Mission accomplished from the documentary, really well done.
So what is it that The Social Dilemma helped us gain a better understanding of?
That tech companies do not create features and make decisions with the needs and desires of the user in mind.
The tech companies’ interest and business models are shaped to rake in our attention and our time. Attention directed at the screen of the social media apps for as many combined minutes and hours of the day possible.
But how can we use this knowledge to put ourselves back into the driver seat, to make intentional, healthy choices about when, how often and for how long we view our feeds?
Bridging the gap between awareness and action
The film might leave us feeling overwhelmed. Perhaps even with a feeling of powerlessness or the false sentiment that social media platforms need to change in order for us to build a better relationship with technology. Or that governments need to intervene to protect the public (which is a fair question that needs to be discussed).
And the reality is: you can do something against the manipulative, addictive side of social media. You can become active. You can successfully build a healthy relationship with social media. How? First of all, by genuinely believing that you can change your social media habits.
Sounds like it’s coming from a motivational speaker. But bear with me because it’s deeper than that, and it’s based on science.
In her TED Talk, the educator Mamie Morrow beautifully explains how the belief in our own ability to succeed can help us to actually succeed. She says:
“Our belief in our ability plays a major role in how we approach our goals and challenges”
This mental ability is called self-efficacy. It’s a psychological resource. Low self-efficacy makes us feel that we’re incapable to successfully accomplish something. Even if we would attempt to do something, we would give up fairly quickly. Because we don’t believe that we’ll ultimately be successful (Lundenburg, 2011).
It might happen that The Social Dilemma reduces the self efficacy level to utilize social media in a healthy way — especially for people who already have a low level.
Increase your self-efficacy right now and cultivate your habits
The good news is that self-efficacy can be enhanced. It’s the foundation of habit change. And here’s how:
- Experience success. Break down your goals down to small, achievable steps. Ensure they are reachable. Reach them. Feel successful.
- Be inspired. Find a community that has walked the walk, and draw inspiration from their success. You’re not alone in this.
- Receive encouragement. You’ve got this. Encouragement helps you remain focussed and committed.
- Learn to observe difficult emotions and unhealthy behaviors. What triggers you? An Instagram feed full of too-perfect bodies? The boredom of having to wait in the supermarket queue? Or maybe stress at work? Learn to identify these triggers and cope with difficult emotions like anxiety and stress. We know you can do it.
These four steps will help you to start making a change to your relationship to social media. To be in control again. If you’re seeking a little support with this, we might be able to help — with our evidence-based app and our community on Instagram. We’re all in this together.
You possess the ability to make social media work for you, not against you. If you believe in your mental capability to build a healthy relationship with technology, you’ll be successful in achieving your goals.
We want to encourage you. To support you in taking one step at a time.
You’ve got this.
Sources:
- Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Self-efficacy in the workplace: Implications for motivation and performance. International journal of management, business, and administration, 14(1), 1–6.
- Abele, A. E., & Spurk, D. (2009). The longitudinal impact of self-efficacy and career goals on objective and subjective career success. Journal of vocational behavior, 74(1), 53–62.
