Mary Cox, mary.cox@edwpub.net

Movies with Mary: Big Brother is watching

The Social Dilemma is a documentary about social media, airing on Netflix, that may scare the puddin out of you if you can watch it all the way through. Either that, or you will be bored and pick up your phone and turn to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Twenty-three executives, engineers, and designers from Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Foxfire, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. talk about social media, how it was designed and why it was designed, and what it has become.

At first, most of the social media websites were created to give people a way to connect with family and friends and share information, but as time went on, it became more of a market to trade on human futures. It set up algorithms to predict human behavior and to manipulate it, according to this documentary.

Everything you do is being tracked and recorded to build models that predict your behavior. The models also manipulate us to change our behavior without us even knowing they are doing it. Social Media is an addiction, just like alcohol, gambling and drugs.

People have become so addicted to social media that they arent aware of how much time they spend online. There are only two industries that call their customers users: drugs and software. Social media is a drug.

Since the advent of social media, suicide rates and self-harm of young women has skyrocketed and bullying has increased, according to this documentary.

In the last few years, our country has been divided more and more politically. Social media has played an important part in this because of the information received, it reinforces your beliefs. We are being manipulated. We receive only the news we want to see and read that instead of the truth, regardless of which party we support. If you are a Republican you receive only news that supports that point of view, and if you are a Democrat, you only receive news that supports that point of view.

At this point, social media is not regulated.

Directed by Jeff Orlowski, The Social Dilemma was written by Orlowski, Vicki Curtis and Davis Coombe.

It starts off very, very slow. Psychiatrists, former executives, computer designers each talk about what social media is doing to manipulate your behavior and why. The why is trillions of dollars annually. If you stay with it, it will scare the heck out of you. It seems that George Orwell was just about 40 years off.

Big Brother is watching!

Movie critic Mary Cox lives in Wood River and studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has worked in L.A. with various directors and industry professionals. Contact Mary at mary.cox@edwpub.net.

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Movies with Mary: 'Big Brother' is watching - Alton Telegraph