The main premise of the movie is that social media platforms are manipulative and addicting. The film instead itself distorts reality to manipulate your thinking on the matter, just as it claims social media manipulates reality to make you addicted.
It is any business's goal to be successful. If you went to a restaurant that served great food, you would go back time and time again. Do you think people would say -- "This food is too good, it's addictive". Then do you think people would say -- "This restaurant's food is too addictive. The restaurant is manipulating the ingredients so that the food tastes better. We need to do something about this.".
The same stupid argument is being made against Facebook. It made a good product that people want to use. Do you think Facebook would say -- "There are too many people using our product. Let's make it worse so that fewer people use it." NO.
The truth is that Facebook succeeded using intelligent approaches such as machine learning and A/B testing in order to produce a product that more people want to use. It is in their best interest to produce a product people want to use, otherwise fewer people would use it.
It succeeded by using various approaches which the film just touches the surface on, enough to confuse the hell out of you (I have a data science background so know these topics much better than the surface-level references in the film).
For example it uses machine learning approaches to construct a feed. This is called personalization of content. The film treats personalization of content as a nefarious feature. Let me ask you -- would you prefer the content was not personalized? This is like preferring that all people know nothing about any other person, so that they are all treated the same. We prefer that people know something about us, so that when we talk it is more personal.
Another thing mentioned at such a surface level to confuse the hell out of you is A/B testing. This is so that Facebook can test out different features and see how they impact the product. Would you prefer if Facebook didn't test features out and had no idea how they impacted the product? This would produce a worse product that fewer people wanted to use.
I agree that social media has major problems --
- It can distance you from reality and make you see things through the lens of the digital social realm
- It can filter only happy moments and make you think that everyone else is happy, but why aren't I happy?
- Controlling for biased or intentionally misrepresented facts is tough, so people might change their opinions on things based on what they read when what they read might not be truthful
- The business is driven by advertising revenue, so the social media companies are incentivized to drive conversion to ads as their main business. This makes for an unhealthy relationship between building a good product and driving revenue.
But the film argues that you are driven to use its product and hence be exposed to these problems through addiction and manipulation, which looked at in a different light, is what happens when you build a good product, just as what happens when you serve good food at a restaurant -- people want to come back. It is your responsibility to make sure you and your children are aware of these problems and deal with them in a sensible way.