BENGALURU: Noor Zahira had a busy two days after she watched The Social Dilemma. The documentary, which released on Netflix, shines a harsh spotlight on the harmful effects of social media. Funnily enough, it has led to debates on social media, about such platforms and how they have taken over the day-to-day functioning of human lives. So much so that Zahira spent hours researching the developers of various apps, their political connections, their privacy policies and so on.
The 21-year-old has now deleted her Instagram app and spends much lesser time on WhatsApp. “I prefer Telegram now. At least it doesn’t have any of those status or stories that WhatsApp has. I also ask my friends to switch to Telegram or Signal, which I think has better message encryption,” says the BA student, who now uses WhatsApp mainly to communicate just with her parents.
Zahira is not alone. Youngsters across the city seem to be re-evaluating their online presence after this documentary. While some like Zahira decided to get rid of some apps altogether, others like Chinmay MP have decided to regulate their usage more. “Every time an advertisement comes up on my social media feed, I think of the film.
So now, I have decided not to watch much of the recommended videos because that just feeds the algorithm and gives them more data on me,” says the 22-year-old, who also plans to follow profiles and people that express views different from his. “If I only follow things I agree with, it becomes an echo chamber for me to validate my own thoughts,” he explains, adding that he will also look at a 45-minute cap for time spent on Twitter and Instagram.
While the addictive nature of social media is not news to most users, the film seems to have been just the impetus some needed to finally pull the trigger on their usage. “These are things we read about in bits and pieces everywhere but the film packages it neatly – with inputs from the very tech creators who designed the products.
"So, it helped speed up the process for many,” says Meghana Devotta, a therapist and research at mental health organisation Kaha Mind. Since watching the film, Devotta too has started turning off notifications on her smartphone from 10 am to 7 pm these days. And this concern with social media, she says, seems to be strongest with those between the ages of 25 and 30 years. “The younger ones who have grown up with social media have lesser reported concerns,” she says.
Concern is looming large with parents as well. Ishwarya Kumar Ahmed, a mother of two who conducts digital detox programmes for children, has been receiving calls from parents about the film. “The conversation about the effects of technology’s exposure on children has always been ongoing. But the film has reinforced what I already believed in - I don’t want my daughter to fall prey to filters that enhance her physical features. As a parent, I am going to try my hardest to make sure my children’s lives don’t revolve around social media,” she says.