Social Media as a Digital Pacifier

This week in class we took a look at the film The Social Dilemma, where tech exports bring light to the dangerous impacts of social networking which is used to manipulate and influence the world 💻. This film highlights how powerful the control social media has on the world today. There were many interesting points that were brought up in the film that I wanted to talk about in today's blog post. One concept that was brought up throughout the film was growth hacking, which I had never heard of before watching this film. Growth hacking is a process that uses low-cost digital marketing strategies to help startups and digital businesses increase their user base and revenue quickly. This process combines elements of marketing, data analytics, and product development to create, test, and execute high-impact strategies. 

The Social Dilemma

Another point that was brought up in the film that I never realized played a big role in getting users to become active on their social platforms is photo tagging. For example, in the film, the girl tagged one of the leads in a photo to make him look at his phone and see her profile. This action created a domino effect because he then viewed the photo and commented. Each person that she tagged in her post commented back making the activity on this platform skyrocket. This highlights that the goal of social media companies is user engagement. Once you get a user on a social media platform, they tend to continue scrolling, which allows for these companies to track what you are most likely interested in clicking on 📲. 

The Social Dilemma

Tech experts discuss that social media was never meant to become something harmful. Platforms were created to spread positivity and experiences with the world. No one ever thought about the impact that those likes would have on individuals self-confidence and anxiety. People my age are constantly refreshing their social media pages to see if someone new had liked their post and if the amount of people had increased. Although this film seems to point out the negative side of social media, there are a lot of positive aspects of it as well. You are able to share experiences and connect with people all over the world🗺. You just have to be able to control your screen time and what you are using your social media platforms for. 

Social Media

I hope you all enjoyed this talk about The Social Dilemma and how social media has its positive and its negative sides. I hope you have a great rest of your week and I'll catch you next time on Days of Dani!