The Social Dilemma

Name: The Social Dilemma
Genre: Drama, Documentary
Released: September 9, 2020
Duration: 89 min
Rating: 78
Cast: Aza Raskin, Barbara Gehring, Catalina Garayoa, Chris Grundy, Kara Hayward

2020

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Generally favorable reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 98 Ratings

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7.6

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7.6	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 98 Ratings

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The Social Dilemma

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Movie Details & Credits

Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): September 9, 2020 | PG-13

Starring: Aza Raskin, Barbara Gehring, Catalina Garayoa, Chris Grundy, Kara Hayward, Skyler Gisondo, Sophia Hammons, Tim Kendall, Tristan Harris, Vincent Kartheiser

Summary: Technology wizards have masterminded a new form of capitalism, and humanity is now the raw resource feeding the machine. Powerful, hidden artificial intelligence tasked with hijacking our attention is tearing apart social norms, jeopardizing truth and democracy, and putting civilization on a programmed path toward self-destruction. Set inTechnology wizards have masterminded a new form of capitalism, and humanity is now the raw resource feeding the machine. Powerful, hidden artificial intelligence tasked with hijacking our attention is tearing apart social norms, jeopardizing truth and democracy, and putting civilization on a programmed path toward self-destruction. Set in the dark underbelly of Silicon Valley, The Social Dilemma fuses investigative documentary with enlightening narrative drama—think An Inconvenient Truth meets The Matrix. Expert testimony from tech whistle-blowers exposes our disturbing predicament: the services Big Tech provides—search engines, networks, instant information, et cetera—are merely the candy that lures us to bite. Once we’re hooked and coming back for more, the real commodity they sell is their prowess to influence and manipulate us.… Expand

Director: Jeff Orlowski

Genre(s): Drama, Documentary

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 89 min

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Critic Reviews

Kevin Crust

Sep 9, 2020

Jeff Orlowski’s The Social Dilemma may be the most important documentary you see this year. Read full review

Leslie Felperin

Sep 9, 2020

Miraculously, it manages to unpack this perplexing issue with precision and intelligence but without any moral panic-mongering, condescension or dumbing down the complexity of the science stuff. Read full review

Movie Nation Roger Moore

Sep 10, 2020

Social Dilemma is a good film, probably too little too late to play a role in saving democracy or healing a nation so divided half of it won’t do the most basic things to stop a pandemic. But there you are, and there we are. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Nell Minow

Sep 8, 2020

The most important lesson from The Social Dilemma is that we should question everything we read online, especially if it is presented to us in a way that reflects a detailed understanding of our inclinations and preferences. Read full review

Mick LaSalle

Sep 9, 2020

The Social Dilemma should be mandatory viewing for everyone who has a social media account. After seeing it, you may look at your phone differently, as something that isn’t really your friend. Read full review

Dennis Harvey

Feb 1, 2020

Densely packed yet lively and entertaining documentary, whose accessibility is heightened by some narrative play-acting. Read full review

Joe Morgenstern

Sep 10, 2020

The most urgent question posed by The Social Dilemma is whether democracy can survive the social networks’ blurring of fact and fiction. “Imagine a world where no one believes what’s true,” Mr. Harris says. It’s possible, of course, that the film itself is a conspiracy cooked up by chronic malcontents, but it has the ringtone of truth. Read full review

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User Reviews

JRSIII

Sep 11, 2020

So important to watch, especially in these times of great divisiveness. This doc exposes the core of all of it. Please watch, especially if you have young kids

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

sep_ehr

Sep 22, 2020

pretty informative,a must see documentary,recommend to everyone that uses internet on daily basis

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Johannes_

Sep 11, 2020

This documentary offers some insights and arguments that I hadn't thought about before. It implies that social media is in a way responsible for a wide range of social problems we face today. Many of which I had not linked to social media before.

I believe it is one of the most importantThis documentary offers some insights and arguments that I hadn't thought about before. It implies that social media is in a way responsible for a wide range of social problems we face today. Many of which I had not linked to social media before.

I believe it is one of the most important things to watch in 2020 and I will recommend it to everyone I know.

Do watch it!… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

andy1828

Sep 12, 2020

Great documentary. Harris shares how these companies prey on our psychology for their own profit. This is a problem that we all heard of one time, but forgotten on a daily basis.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

JimmyBaginski

Oct 3, 2020

This documentary perfectly articulates several nagging points of paranoia I have felt in the last 10 years of social media use and expansion. 1. Our daily consumer habits are being watched,tracked and monitored in order to sell to advertisers. Advertising uncannily responds, seemingly, toThis documentary perfectly articulates several nagging points of paranoia I have felt in the last 10 years of social media use and expansion. 1. Our daily consumer habits are being watched,tracked and monitored in order to sell to advertisers. Advertising uncannily responds, seemingly, to our most private of consumer impulses, to the point of it feeling like it can read our minds. Every platform, WhatsApp included, appears to be harnessing digital algorithms to triangulate our next purchase and take money so that advertisers can reach us and entice us towards their products. 2. Politics has become shockingly polarised due to social media's endless solipsistic feedback loop of confirmation bias and obfuscation of countervailing opinion. We are being radicalised by social media's promise of cosseting us with what we already like. Hence why the world is collapsing as the ideological battle for culture and political power is being waged at cross purposes on social media. Everything everywhere is partisan and our tribal instincts are being played out online and in the real world, whether you are left wing or right wing.

3. Mental health has been hijacked by the engineered addiction cycle big tech has baked into social media. And, this has lead to massive increases in depression, anxiety and suicide. Social media is not good for our health as it has atomised and personalised our human interactions into abstract pavlovian rewards on a smart device. We are spiritually lost the more social media we use and the more our world becomes reliant on it to remain socially relevant and mobile. Things like Instagram, where we are confronted by daily reminders of our own shortcomings foster a sense of lack and low status. 4. We are poised on the precipice of some kind of social tipping point where the over saturation of social media is at the centre of our existential crisis. The projection is that things are only going to get worse. Hysteria, outrage, fear and disunity will only deepen as we move forward, as our collective neurosis mounts on top of us. And, the way out of this lay not just in our sense of individual responsibility but also in the hands of big tech itself, and any political oversight that can be leveraged to regulate the ill effects of unbridled silicon valley advancement. So, how do we solve it? The documentary is flawed, and succumbs to some level of contradiction by engaging in a biased political view of the problem. It has selective focus. However, it slightly overstates, oversimplifies and disproportionately attributes cause to silicon valley in my opinion. Some human problems lay at the feet of our own human algorithms, built of our evolutionary circuitry. However, our incentives may be human and inalienable to some degree, but our social policy need not be so willing to play to those most base of human impulses for profit. Not all human problems can be solved but some problems are created and exacerbated by the systems we create and maintain. The film suggests we delete our social media as a way to curtail its spread and effect on our daily lives. It's not offered as a fix all or panacea, but as a starting point. I suggest that, as a person who routinely deletes apps, accounts and is constantly monitoring their usage, the most pernicious aspect of social media is that our very economic mobility is intricately tied to our social media presence now. By outright quitting social media you are effectively opting out of a public utility used as a standard highway to navigate modern life. Digital objectionism is the modernised equivalent of moving to a mountain shack and living off the land, a step made more extreme by our increasing reliance on technology for basic survival. In conclusion, the documentary is spreading awareness and attempting us to ask bigger and deeper questions about how our reality is shaped by our technology. That's a good thing.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Brent_Marchant

Apr 7, 2021

Though the cautionary tales here are noteworthy (especially for the younger and more impressionable users of social media), "The Social Dilemma" tends to sideline such personal attributes as choice and free will in presenting its arguments, as if we're all too weak-willed to make decisionsThough the cautionary tales here are noteworthy (especially for the younger and more impressionable users of social media), "The Social Dilemma" tends to sideline such personal attributes as choice and free will in presenting its arguments, as if we're all too weak-willed to make decisions for ourselves. As a result, the absolutist nature of its contentions weakens their impact, suggesting that our behavior is unavoidably alterable and that we're all ill-equipped to handle the compellingly manipulative forces of technology and an intrusive business model relentlessly driven by profits at all costs that are mercilessly thrust upon us. What's more, the film under-emphasizes the human factor in the creation of these issues, generally putting the blame more on the technology that drives them than the individuals who initiated them, as well as on those (i.e., virtually all of us) who obviously lack the personal power to drag themselves away from these destructive influences. Through interviews with former social media and information technology experts, backed by fictionalized examples illustrating their assertions, director Jeff Orlowski's documentary makes some valid points that we should all be aware of, but its dogmatic approach -- despite the inclusion of some tangible and scary real world incidents -- effectively removes us from the equation in being able to do anything about it. A handful of solutions is offered to address this social dilemma, and fleeting references to the benefits this technology has afforded are given passing acknowledgment, but the prevailing outlook is one that we're all doomed by our inherent ignorance and an inability to protect ourselves. Personally, I refuse to give up that easily, and I'm troubled by a film that suggests resistance is futile. Responsibility is key, something this offering makes little allowance for.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

MartinT

Oct 8, 2021

Without proof there is no truth. The documentary provides at most three points of evidence throughout, let alone data. It relies on hypotheticals and apocalyptic metaphor to get their points across, which are ineffective when trying to prove them. The rest of it is inaccurate or outrightWithout proof there is no truth. The documentary provides at most three points of evidence throughout, let alone data. It relies on hypotheticals and apocalyptic metaphor to get their points across, which are ineffective when trying to prove them. The rest of it is inaccurate or outright provably false. It seems more like a poorly casted movie than something meant to persuade. I never leave negative reviews, but this mockumentary made me make an exception.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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79	#79 Most Discussed Movie of 2020