Have you seen the documentary “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix yet? A member in my private FB Group (if you haven’t joined this 500 person strong group, do it!) recommended it as family movie night choice, and I’m so glad that I heeded her advice.
When I chose it for family movie night (it was MY turn, and we have a family policy about no complaints to protect our youngest’s choice for “Beauty and the Beast” for the tenth time!), there was some hesitation.
My 14 year old son warned me that his friend was banned from YouTube after her parents watched the movie, and he was worried that I would do the same. I assured him we would discuss any changes to our family screentime principles together if the movie brought up some issues.
And boy! The movie did bring up some issues!
Both good and bad.
Both revealing and concealing.
Both challenging and “of course, no duh!”.
Everyone in the family, from Dad down to kid sis, watched the movie in a defensive posture. Hugging pillow, curled in the corners of the sofa.
Directed by Jeff Orlowski, of “Chasing Coral” fame, “The Social Dilemma” interviews tech exec defectors, guilt ridden investors, and earnest educators as they spin a tale on what the New York Times so aptly frames as the “oldest tropes of the horror genre — Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist who went too far — for the digital age.”
The interviews are interwoven with a “made-for-TV-family-drama” complete with teenage angst, girl crushes, violence, and a very strange police arrest in a neighbourhood park.
The parts where my “made-for-home-family” started to laugh out loud were where Vincent Kartheiser stars as a poor man’s (or should I say Madman’s?) teenage conscious mimicking three parts of the IBM operating system: spyware, malware, and virus.
The movie to me was stimulus.
The colourful Jaron Lanier is everyone’s cool uncle who likes to warn young people of the future (It’s about the big corporation power, man!) represented by the dreads mixed with machina. The teenage girl who cries in her bedroom mirror because a stranger comments on her ears in an instagram feed. Tim Kendall, CEO of Moment (an app to help your time management ON Screens), admits that he is addicted to email, a product he developed at Google.
Parts were sensationalist.
We know that we live in echo chambers of news. We know that because that we surround ourselves with people that believe in our same ethos.
Want proof?
Look around your physical space, you will see patterns. Look around your neighbourhood, there is consistency.
We are not stupid and blind marchers to the digital drum of technologists. We are stupid blind marchers to things that we blindly value… without purpose.
To resist the path to the dark corners of the internet, learning from the character “Ben” in the movie, you need to know how to use technology with a PURPOSE.
Screentime allows us to BE MORE innately human with more efficiently. If you were prone to more anger in real life, then technology will pour gasoline unto that fire. If you were more prone to violence, then technology will give you the means to test that violence in more ways.
So, what does it mean for us parents?
It means we double-down on parenting IRL, which means “In Real Life.” Securing a child’s self worth, purpose, and value, then mentoring a path to screentime as a tool for that identity is how I’m personally attempting to fight the technology battle.
Watch “The Social Dilemma” with your kids, and see how the conversation unfolds in your family. “The Social Dilemma” sounds the alarm about the incursion of data mining and manipulative technology into our social lives and beyond… And THAT is a message our kids should know.
However, not knowing how to use your computer, smartphone, tablet, watch, TV etc etc well does not serve anyone. How will you identify the fake news, the posers, the money stealing schemes?
I think Bill knows…
Those who are adroit at technology, media and marketing will find themselves increasingly wealthy, while those who are not will watch their incomes and access fall.
So, I encourage you… Watch the documentary “Social Dilemma”!
But don’t forget the best part of the movie… The discussion afterwards with your family. It will be the best part of the movie.