Social Dilemma Worksheet
The Social Dilemma is a 2020 American docudrama
film directed by Jeff Orlowski and written by
Orlowski, Davis Coombe, and Vickie Curtis. It
explores the rise of social media and the damage it
has caused to society, focusing on its exploitation and
manipulation of its users for financial gain through
surveillance capitalism and data mining. It goes into
depth on how social media's design is meant to
nurture an addiction, manipulate its use in politics, and
spread conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and
aiding groups such as flat-earthers. The film also
examines the serious issue of social media's effect on mental health (including the mental
health of adolescents and rising teen suicide rates). and written by Orlowski, Davis Coombe,
and Vickie Curtis. It explores the rise of social media and the damage it has caused to society,
focusing on its exploitation and manipulation of its users for financial gain through surveillance
capitalism and data mining. It goes into depth on how social media's design is meant to nurture
an addiction, manipulate its use in politics, and spread conspiracy theories such as Pizza Gate
and aiding groups such as flat-earthers. The film also examines the serious issue of social
media's effect on mental health (including the mental health of adolescents and rising teen
suicide rates). The film features interviews with many former employees, executives, and other
professionals from top tech companies and social media platforms such as Facebook, Google,
and Apple. These interviewees provide their first-hand experiences of working in and around the
tech industry. They state that social media platforms and big tech companies have been
instrumental in providing positive change for society; they also note that such platforms have
also caused problematic social, political, and cultural consequences. These interviews are
presented alongside scripted dramatizations of a teenager’s social media addiction and a primer
on how a social media algorithm powered by artificial intelligence may work.
1. This docudrama classified 3 areas of dilemma that social media causes. Using the
information in the movie and discussion info sheet, fill in the following chart.
Dilemma
Effects
How social media perpetuates the effects.
mental health
dilemma
The effect here
would be
addiction, anxiety,
and depression
Through social media we are being hooked on of
phones at an extreme amount where we are caused to
be distracted from our metal health from being on
social media so much.
democracy
dilemma
The effect here
would be political
polarization and
divisiveness.
The way that the democracy dilemma gets perpetuated
through social media is through ways where people
change their minds on what they see on social media.
This would be through fake news which spreads
extremely fast. Social media has also caused shifts in
voting to people who ae unsure of what to vote for.
discrimination
dilemma
The effect here
would be
Algorithmic bias
and the
amplification of
hate.
Lastly the discrimination dilemma is caused by social
medias algorithmic bias which is the amplification of
hate. Here what is happening is the current ai models
on social media cause hate speech and through
algorithms most people who join bad groups are
because of what they are being recommended. As well
as this ads were at one point allowed to be
discriminatory.
2. If you were asked by someone “what exactly is the problem with social media and why is
it a dilemma?” how would you answer in as few words as possible?
I would say: The problem that I see with social media is how much horrible things can be put up
and spread without putting in any effort.
3. A more humane future will require fundamental changes to how our society designs,
regulates and uses technology. List THREE things that would help to undo the side
effects of extractive technology.
What we need to do
How we would do it
Age restrictions
The way that this could be done is through social media they would
have to ask for proof of someone’s real age through a card of sort.
This would stop much younger kids from be exposed to early in life to
ruin their childhood and cause them to act much older than they truly
are.
Filters
The way that filters could be used would be to stop any
communication of hate comments and stop any gatherings that would
destroy certain groups of people. This would end up stopping and
gathering of people that promote hate.
Rules
The way that rules could be put in effect would be through more strict
rules that would ban people and companies off of all platforms of
social media. This could stop people from switching through different
accounts and platforms to promote hate speech.
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4. Choose ONE of the following roles and summarize what that might look like in real life.
To do this answer the questions under each role.




Family
Students and Teachers
Technology Workers
Advertisers
Role
What is looks like (answer the questions in point form indicating each question)
Advertisers
-As an advertiser I do think that we advertisers should have the power to target
and influence the masses to an unprecedented degree. The reason that I think
that we should have this ability would be because we see that it can help our
users finds topics that are interested in and others that support them as well.
-As an advertiser we are worried that our ads could be shown along side
misinformation or hate speech. As an advertiser we should 100% always know
where ads are being used and who they are being shown alongside as well as
this we should also have a choice of who are ads are not shown to.
-The way that us advertisers can play a role in prioritizing human ad solutions
would be through making sure our ads have no offence to anyone and making
sure that we can make deals that other companies are not allowed to show any
hate ads.
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5. Choose TWO of the six aspects of the human person from the power point in course
content and connect them with TWO pieces of information.
Aspect of human person
Mental
Emotional
6.
Social Dilemma pieces
The way that metal health would be affected
by this current dilemma that is currently going
on would be through addiction, anxiety, and
depression because of how much we are
being hooked on to social media. Another
way that mental health would be connected
would be through how we are seeing many
fake views about what is going on throughout
the world. This could cause humans to go
through metal stress thinking that some
problems are worst than they may seem.
Emotional would relate to how teenagers who
are spending over 3 hours a day on social
media have a much higher chance to suicide
compared to teens that spend less than one
hour. Another way that that this trait would
connect to the content would be how parents
as well as kids struggle to not focus on their
phones.
Choose ONE piece of the development of conscience and explain how you would relate
it to one of the negative pieces of information in the film in order for someone to make a
moral decision and do the right thing.
The development of conscience piece that I have chosen would be when kids start to feel as if
they must fit in with others to be happy. The way that this could relate to one of the negative
pieces of film in the movie would be when the youngest daughter would put filters on her face to
make her look better just for others as we could she how she was not happy with how she
normally looked. What could end up happening that would be bad could be someone saying to
stop using filters since that’s not who they truly are and that would end up making them
understand that as well.
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