This week was a reality check.

I knew as soon as the opening scenes that The Social Dilemma was going to be a good watch. It featured a lot of information that I low-key already knew, but that sounded a lot worse being blatantly stated by people who knew what they were talking about and who, in some aspect created the very sites that we depend on. What was really powerful to me was how the visual representation of Ben starts as an unrecognizable human form and becomes a complete Replika (see what I did there) of him. This shows how powerful the AI in social media and technology really is. It plays off of the way our minds work in ways that we can’t even fully understand or see until we take a step back and look from another angle. Even then, we can’t see enough to stop the addiction. One of the things that was said in the film that stood out to me was from one of the people in the tech industry. With him being of an older generation, I didn’t expect it from him, but he said that we have to decide whether we’re going to check our phones before or during our trip to the bathroom in the morning because there’s really no other option. The reason that’s so stunning to me is the fact that he said there’s no other choice. There is another choice. Yet the convenience of your smart phone makes the other choices seem irrational. How can you not check your phone in the morning when it’s literally your alarm clock. You have to get on it to shut it off. And we’re so addicted to our phones that I highly doubt many of us can resist the urge to check the list of notifications on our screens that we see after we hit snooze. Instantly, from the very moment we open our eyes in the morning, we’re hooked.

I thought the episode of Silicon Valley was interesting too. It emphasized two things for me; one, the makers of these technologies, for the most part, aren’t fully thinking about the effect that their product is going to have when it’s released to millions of people. Of course when you’re the creator, you want to think about how your product helps people connect and helps solve the world’s problems, not how it shatters our self esteem and helps to spread dangerous messages, such as terrorist ideals. Second, that the people who are creating these technologies don’t even really understand it enough to be prone to the addictions of both using it and creating it. If they don’t know, how do we stand a chance?

At the end of this week, I wanted to delete social media. I’m not a poster, and, therefore, don’t use social media as a form of expression on a regular basis. I’m an endless scroller. I’ve had times in my life where I’ve had every social media and have been careless about my life and I’ve had times in my life where I minimized my accounts and had time set aside during the day when my phone gets shut off. It’s doable people. I know it and you know it. I’m going to start minimizing my usage again and making sure that I’m not sacrificing the simple things in life; my family dinners, holidays, productive time, self esteem and new life experiences don’t need to be ruined because of technologies addicting capabilities.

Did this week make you want to change your social media/technology habits? If so, do you see it happening long term?

The Weekly News

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/20/europe/pope-francis-instagram-like-intl-scli/index.html

“Vatican asks Instagram to get to the bottom of Pope account’s lingerie model ‘like’“

Disclaimer: I didn’t look up anything about social media or our class to find this news… this is just simply our news today.