That movie / documentary struck a chord through most of us. It’s because the implications are uncannily real and tangible.
Take for instance, the scene where a young girl gets to her phone, takes pictures, does some filter to enhance her looks, and then reacting a certain way because of her friends’ comments, definitely paints how our society has become – we have been chasing increase on our social media status over and over without really looking at how it will make use feel and affect our actions. Getting validation for 100k to 1M people is not a healthy choice as it breaks the individual to grow organically and succumbing to social pressure as result.
What makes social media very powerful is it has become more than a tool that just lies around when we need to use. It has become part of our mannerisms. When we hear a bell notification, we instantly check our phone. Social media is constantly seeking to get our attention from the most important parts of our life we need to focus more on.
Social media has also been weaponized to sway a nation’s elections by targeting a certain population with content that have been manufactured by a certain political party.
Unbeknownst to most, the social media has similar mechanism as a roulette. The movie clearly exposed how we are hooked to the feed by seeking different results as we scroll through. It brings out the addictive side of a person making his / her consume his/her screen time to it instead of doing something productive. This is really bad and I am guilty on this. Come to think of it, I think it hasn’t brought me anything good.
The film also showed how social media could lead to relationship problems and real-life consequences. Numerous studies has come out already to derive the harmful effects of reading posts from friends or family ensuing jealousy, hatred and insecurity as common emotions felt by users.
One other speculation in the film is how fake news could be spread 6 times faster in social media.
Some quotable quotes in the film include:
- “If you are not paying the product, you are the product”
- “Attention is the currency”
Personally, I grew in a traditional Asian Filipino family in the 90’s where we are required to study hard, follow house rules, and finish our studies on time. That kind of training has made me, a “millenial”, more aware of the challenges Y and Z generations are experiencing; they are far more subtle, sugar-coated and deceptive than what was expected. Clearly, the world has changed as information is more accessible within the finger tips. For this day and age, adolescents and young adults like me are suffering a different battle we ought to take a stand from.
Software being 