Skip to main content

Blog Post 14: The Social Dilemma

 Welcome to the Blogging Brooke, 



Today I would like to talk about the Netflix film called The Social Dilemma. I had already watched this documentary prior to this film class earlier on in the semester for my social media class. 

In this blog post, I will define my key takeaways from the film.

First I will start off with how many dilemmas I was able to count in the film. 

  • At minute 6:40, Tristan Harris, a former Google design enthusiast and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, names 7 dilemmas. These seven include a cacophony of grievances and scandals, data stealing, tech addiction, fake news, political polarization, elections getting hacked. Cynthia Wong named a few more offline harm dilemmas including hate speech, manipulating public opinion, and inciting violence. There is also populism, mass chaos, and lack of trust.  In total, I counted thirteen dilemmas. One in detail would be fake news. Fake news is always harmful to society. It causes people to be mislead on a topic and then it spreads worldwide and can ultimately result in chaos. For example, the Covid-19 vaccine was said to be derived from eating Chinese food, this caused Chinese restaurants to almost go bankrupt for a while. Fake news is dangerous to society, and we need to be careful with all information we see online.

 Then the question of whether or not we should trust we trust algorithms that rely on constantly surveilling our activities online arises. My answer to this question would be no, I do not think we should trust algorithms (methods) that rely on constantly having to be surveilling its user’s activity online. It is even more dangerous when the surveillance is regarding personal use such as job searching, finances, and housing. Jeff states that “every single action you take is being carefully monitored and recorded.” To me, that is very alarming. Jeff Siebert stated that they can see and measure exactly what image you stop and look at and even the length of time you were looking at that certain image. So back to my first point, no, we should not trust algorithms that rely on the constant stalking of our [the users] activities online. We do not know what they do with the data that they are constantly collecting. After watching this documentary, I think that it is best to either delete social media or limit your use of it because of the unknown realm of information that the internet has on us that we are unaware of. I do not want to be on Zillow looking for a house in the future and then open my bank account on my phone when the screen can see how much I have or where I want to live, it is truly unsettling. The algorithms gather all the data from your usage and decide what to show you to get your attention and gain clicks or likes.  


To conclude, this film points out all of the horrifying things that users do not see when it comes to social media. This film also does a good job of helping these people realize the effects that social media can have on a person/people, and how it is a dangerous social media revolved world that we live in. This scenario is just a couple of the many that users face worldwide. What can we do to stop this evolving problem? There is only one answer; delete social media. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Post 8: Pan's Labyrinth

 Welcome to the Blogging Brooke,      Today I will be talking about a 2006 film directed by Guillermo del Toro called Pan's Labyrinth. I enjoyed watching this film, however, the only critique I have is that we watched the Spanish Version with English subtitles, and I feel like the subtitles are a little distracting to the film. Pan's Labyrinth reminded me and my roommate both of the film Spirited Away.      It reminded me of Spirited Away because in this film, Chihiro (Rumi Hiiragi), leaves her hometown and ends up in a world totally unfamiliar with the one she has known. This ties into the film Pans' Labyrinth because Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), ends up in the Labyrinth world. In this world, she is a completely different person who faces obstacles and lives a different life.  Side note: thing that is interesting to me is the movie covers. They look very similar, and they have a similar story line. It makes me wonder if Guillermo h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blog Post 13: JAWS

 Welcome to the Blogging Brooke, We had the opportunity to watch the cinematic masterpiece; Jaws . Jaws is a horror film that was released in the year 1975 and was directed by Steven Spielberg. I watched this movie for the first time when I was about twelve years old, and getting the chance to watch it at age twenty-one, I understood and appreciated the film and all that took place from a cinema graphic standpoint.  I would just like to vent and appreciate the camera angles, greenscreen use, CGI, and the actors. Throughout the film I felt as if I was living on Amity Island with everybody else. This film is different from other Horror films I watch. I am used to watching films like; Annabelle, The Conjuring, The Black Phone, IT, and The Visit , where the intensity of the movie does not start right at the beginning of the film. However, in Jaws, the film opens with an intensity grabbing scene because we see a woman run into the ocean away from her boyfriend, and gets eaten by a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blog Post 2: About Brooke

Hello,  My name is Brooke Duncan. I am a Junior at North Central College. I am majoring in Computer Programming, Interactive Media Studies- Technology with a minor in Marketing.  I am also a part of the North Central College Women's Volleyball Team.  My interest in the arts developed at a young age. I was always seen holding colored pencils, markers, paintbrushes, etc. I would describe myself as a creative person. My specialty lies in sketching, painting, and ceramics; however, more recently, I have expanded my talent in digital art and design. At NCC, I have taken classes that require using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.  Additionally, I am also interested in editing. The only editing I have done thus far is for student made magazines and various social media posts for friends and family. I believe that my creative talent with the addition of my editorial skills could potentially be useful in the field of film, particularly in the realm of special effec...
Post a Comment
Read more