Maeve Catherine

Growing up with media I have first hand experience dealing with the harmful realities of digital worlds, but the younger generations could be faced with worse.

I have watched the 2020 Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma twice. The first time being fall semester freshman year of college in my first year seminar and again this past June. The documentary focuses on issues humans evidently struggle with in result of persuasive technology. Thinking back to the “hypothetical” experiences the family went through, I worry about the industry I am studying to be a part of.

Mental Health

In the documentary, the younger sister struggles with making friends because her socialization is primarily online. Loneliness, addiction, mental and social challenges are represented through the youngest character. While the average human is going through mental and social challenges every day it is unsettling to see the worse case scenarios on screen.

There was only one film I watched growing up that gave me a similar feeling. The film was called Cyberbully and was also distributed by Netflix in 2011. While the technology was less developed the ways in which it is used still has the same negative impacts twelve years later.

As addressed in both the ledger and in the documentary, tech leaders are working with a primary goal of income not a safer society.

Fake News and Misinterpretations

From a young age we are told to double check our sources, sometimes triple check, but in a short form content world there is “no time”. The Social Dilemma depicts the algorithm choosing a young man’s social media feed with propaganda, conspiracy theories and fake news. The audience follows the young man as he gets involved in extremist movements he doesn’t fully understand. Like many teens and young adults he believed what he saw on the internet and after two other postings showed the same views, he began to believe.

Cognitive Skills

One of the less talked about harms from technology is on ones memory. Before reading evidence found in studies listed on the Center for Humane Technology’s Ledger of Harms from June 2021. The ledger links peer reviewed articles having to do with the media use and memory failure. I personally find this interesting as I have become so reliant on my phone that I have found myself forgetting important details of personable experiences. I am excited to analyze these studies more in my white paper about the tolls media has on individuals under twenty five.

I want to believe there is hope for a safer digital world and physically social society. However, as I type on a macbook beside me sits an Iphone, a kindle, and a Meta Quest 2 VR set, I know it will take time.