1 November 2020 by Mondo2.0

The Social Dilemma: you are the product

In a blog entirely devoted to the Internet and to the social consequences determined by the Web, we could not avoid commenting on the film-documentary of the moment: The Social Dilemma.
We can tell you in advance that we liked the film very much and did not like it at all.
The film is a composition of fragments, interviews, comments and reflections, in rapid succession.
This puzzle of contents and contrasting perceptions pushed us to watch the film several times, analyse some interviews, contents and facial expressions in detail, take notes and reconstruct the sequence of topics.

We wanted to understand more, to understand whether the catastrophic picture proposed by the film really corresponds to the “virtual world” around us.
We extracted some fragments, quotations from the film and, in full Mondo 2.0 style, decided to comment on them in a few lines and share our point of view.

“If you’re not paying for the product … you are the product”

True, very true, it is the main theme of the film, a dramatic piece of evidence for those who deal with the Internet as we do. For more than a decade we have been using Social Networks of every kind, Apps and online services on our PCs and mobile devices, without ever paying anything. Have you never wondered why? Have you never thought that servers, central computers, which make it possible to offer services, software, content and personal images, cost a great deal? And that maintaining, updating and evolving them also costs a great deal? And they are also very fast and efficient. Yet they are free.

The real novelty of the Internet is not in the technology or in the ways it is used; it is given by two objective facts:

• Freedom of access and speech: everyone can essentially be and say anything at any time.
• The overwhelming presence of (apparently) free services.

The greatest merit of this film is that it raises an important doubt in the cyber-user. Why are Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Google free?
On this first point we undoubtedly agree; indeed, we highlight the social usefulness of the “dilemma”.

“…persuasive technology”

Social Networks, Google, Apps and Web Sites collect our data.
Our behaviours become “Big Data”, feeding enormous centralised databases.
Our data are the fuel of a complex engine that follows our every step in order to convince us, to sell us “something”.
Multiform algorithms try to intercept our needs, involve us, make proposals, persuade us.
On this second point we do not agree with the catastrophic vision presented in the film; it is evident that a “data market” exists online, but frankly we do not find it so different from previous “business models”, from what happens on TV, with thousands of advertisements obsessively repeated, strong messages in television news, or in Cinema where behaviour, clothes and props are often the result of commercial agreements rather than of the story itself.
Previously our lifestyle and our needs were largely directed by radio, newspapers, cinema and TV; now, on the great communication carousel, there is “also” the Internet.

“…Futures on people”

Every day, for hours, we use completely free services; it is inevitable that someone will try to sell us something.
It is inevitable that there is a sort of wager, of non-financial but personal “Futures”, based on our behaviours and reactions.
The Web is not only this; there are also extraordinary examples of services “born from below”, without profit-making purposes, such as Wikipedia. The Internet is “also” much more.

Let us add a very important technical aspect: these “Big Data” are very important only if analysed in real time; after a few days they completely lose their value. “Today” I am looking online for information to buy a laptop; in a year this information will have no commercial usefulness and will be deleted from the servers.
The entire observation mechanism is real time, with extremely rapid analysis times and methods.

“The market enters the personal and social fabric”
“…using our behaviours to create needs”

Previous media could not monitor us; the Internet can, tracking our every behaviour.
The advertisement we receive on our smartphone is not the same for everyone as on TV; it is personalised, it follows our searches, our “likes”.
Never as on the Internet does each of our actions produce an effect.
The personalisation of advertisements and notifications can direct us where we do not want to go, but it can also highlight the best price or the best alternative for a basic necessity or something we had already decided to buy, without leaving home.
Glass half empty or half full?

“We are laboratory guinea pigs”

We do not agree.
We need to improve our relationship with the Web, to mature from many points of view.
But we consider it a paradox that a film of “social denunciation” such as this one uses catastrophism to attract a large audience.
The background music, the haunting tones, some alarming phrases, terms such as “extreme deception” create anxiety in the viewer and capture attention.
They are devices in fact very similar to those denounced in the film.
When “The Social Dilemma” accuses through slogans and pressing music, it puts itself on the same level as the “posts” and “notifications” it is denouncing.

And then, interviewing former employees of any company makes it easy to win the argument: there is no former employee who does not have an axe to grind.

“Digital pacifier”

We like this metaphor very, very much.
We do not realise how dependent we have become on the Internet, how often we connect to the Web; the pandemic has only made these habits worse.
The examples told in the film are very real: there are millions of people who look at social media before going to sleep, wake up during the night to see whether they have received notifications, and as soon as they wake up check their virtual spaces again.
The rhythms of their days are marked by social events and notifications; their ability to pay attention and focus is poor, and this is not good at all.

Internet addiction is a global phenomenon that must be taken very seriously and does not concern only the very young.
A phenomenon to which we will soon devote a series of articles in this blog.
But do these kinds of behaviours occur only online? How many of us, when faced with a free service, overuse it?
If the restaurant under our home offered free meals, how many of us would eat only the right amount?
How many would add a meal in the middle of the night? A triple breakfast?
Perhaps the problem is not the commercial horizon of the Internet, but our ability to limit ourselves, to react appropriately to the infinite stimuli coming from the Web.

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle”

True, very true.
Our society is digital; there is no going back.
Many professions are being replaced by new digital jobs.
Digital services are often more efficient, instantaneous, less expensive and global in scope.
The pandemic itself demonstrated the indispensability of digital services; the areas of our society that were digitally further behind suffered and are still suffering greatly in terms of efficiency and provision of basic services.
There is no “plan B”; accept it.

“Do not underestimate our ability to adapt”

We are the first truly digital generation.
We are the first digital parents, the first digital adults, the first completely digital children.
We must learn to use these tools; we must learn not to be slaves to notifications and instant messages, and to maintain a detached relationship with our electronic devices.
We can and must improve.
If we cannot go back with the Internet, we can move forward in a better way.
Decide when to connect, how to use the Internet, what to communicate, how to respond to the stimuli provided by the Web.

We must educate ourselves and educate our children to use the Internet consciously and reasonably.
We must adapt to the new virtual context without losing sight of our true nature, our interests, our aptitudes.
Internet education must enter the school curriculum of every child, teenager and young adult.
At the same time institutions must observe the Internet and try to normalise some important distortions, not limiting themselves to drafting national laws, which are insufficient on a virtual, transnational, intangible terrain.

There is much to do in this Mondo 2.0; we are fully aware of it. It is no coincidence that we have been here for many years, free of charge and with no ulterior motives, precisely to talk about it with all of you.

Mondoduepuntozero