Solving ‘The Social Dilemma’ With Emotional Intelligence
‘The Social Dilemma’ calls for regulation of social media, but here’s how we can regulate ourselves.
This is not a call to abandon social media.
Social media isn’t pure evil, and it isn’t the only technology that is potentially problematic. In a world in which powerful companies are competing to sell our attention to the highest bidder, this is a call for us to pay more attention to ourselves. It’s a call to practice understanding how we feel, what we actually want, and how to tap into our power to take action.
The Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” tells the story of how the technologists behind social media are intentionally changing our behavior to turn us into “easy prey for advertisers and propagandists,” as Devika Girish summarizes in The New York Times review of the film.
“The Social Dilemma” is accused by some of telling this story in an overdramatic way, but it nevertheless contains valuable insight into our relationship with social media. The content and features put in front of us by services like Instagram are not random. Social media is designed to change our behavior and our emotions–often, in ways that we did not explicitly consent to and which may not align with our goals and values.
