I watched the Social Dilemma a couple of months ago and it changed everything about my social media habits. Social media is a double edged sword. It's great for staying connected with people. A lot of my friends are people I've met online. But on the other hand, these social media companies want you to be addicted their product and are manipulating us. As well as false information can be easily spread and it's a big reason why the US is divided right now. I think we're all guilty of this in some degree.
Since watching this movie, I've done a lot of things, to limit my social media use. Since there are still friends I chat with on Messenger, I haven't deleted my facebook yet. But I did deactivate my account. I also disallowed any notification from any app on my phone.
That wasn't enough, I wanted to create something to express how I was feeling and I came up with these three designs. I may have more designs in the future related to this.
We Believe What We Want To Believe
We tend to follow people who have the same beliefs as us. That makes a lot of sense. When we make friends with people, having similar beliefs is huge. We all tend to be in our bubbles. However, this is dangerous because people can make up stories and people can buy into it because they want to believe in it. It's why most Republicans believe that there is a secret organization run by the Democrats that involve pedophiles and pizza chains. (I don't really understand QAnon). But it also works the other way, Democrats believe that Melania Trump is a robot.
I remember in this election when a lot of the people I follow thought this would be a landslide for Biden and it wasn't. We choose to believe that people aren't racist but it's because we follow only people who follow who we believe in.
What's Your Drug of Choice?
I talked a little about this before but social networking companies are addictive. To the point, that it is a drug. These platforms are great in connecting people together and a lot of people launch their careers from these apps/websites. But it can also cause us from disengaging in real life. Studies show that dopamine levels are raised when we get likes and comments from posts. Like anything, it's good if you take it in doses but it can be unhealthy if you are on it too much or don't know how to handle it.
They Are Watching You
This is a play on the song "Every Breath You Take" by The Police. The documentary talks about how social media knows what you like and dislike based on how you interact with the post. If you like and comment on a YouTube video about a dog, for instance, you will then be shown videos of dogs everywhere you look. This can be good because who doesn't want to see more videos of dogs? On the other end, it means that YouTube knows your behaviors and tendencies and can target ads based on your dog-loving nature.
I also always thought this song was a creepy and I wanted to play into it.