I finally watched the Social Dilemma because my students in the Social Media & Society course wanted to discuss it (we’re doing it for our last class). Short thread of comments 1/?

When it came out I didn’t rly want to watch it, because I expected to be annoyed by it the way one is often annoyed by popular conversations about something one has studied and thought deeply about for a long time 2/?

Also, many of my colleagues, whom I respect thrashed it, pointing out flaws like cliche filled dramatizations, too few scholarly voices, too little diversity in voices commenting, glaring omission of expert academic voices who have worked on this for over a decade and 3/?

an overall narrative of a savior tech bro who has, as per the framing in the film, invented concerns pertaining to addiction by design, data justice, platform power, regulation etc, that agin, people within the field of internet research have been doing for decades 4/?

This all holds, but I found myself more appreciative of the film than i expected. First, because of the probably significant agenda setting and framing function it serves for the broadest audiences. We might strive to such impact as scholars, but mostly we don’t succeed 5/?

2. the popular attention opens up avenues to have conversations that go above & beyond, i’m expecting my class to be a healthy critique & a solid discussion, lots of great reading lists have been recommended #onhere & probably fall to more accepting ears/eyes than they would have

3. While there were certainly issues with how problems & solutions were construed, i think the key takeaways for most people are mostly solid - too much power concentrated into too few hands, regulation inadequate & lagging 7/?

individual behavioral changes not a solution, but here are some hacks and things to be mindful of, and most of all, that this is important, this is real, even if it happens on what has for years been cast as ‘just the internet’ or in frivolous ‘merely entertainment’ spaces 8/9

So I think it’s good that this film exists & lots of people think it is amazing, just because they haven’t had access to the smarter existing critiques before. Even if Tristan Harris made us suffer thru the patent bs about no one being upset about bikes. Ok, i’m done 9/9