Netflix film dissects a technology-driven 'social dilemma'

 A new Netflix documentary is setting out to expose techlogy’s corrosive effects on society during a pandemic that's left people more dependent than ever on tools that keep m connected with friends, family and colleagues y can longer meet in person.

So timing for Wednesday’s release of “ Social Dilemma” might strike some viewers as odd. But its makers aim to give you a better sense of why pandemic isn’t only reason it feels like we’re stuck in a dystopian nightmare.

film, directed by Jeff Orlowski, aims to explain how Silicon Valley's embrace of smartphones, attention-grabbing algorithms, polarizing echo chambers and pursuit of profit have left users reeling in a way that could pose an existential threat to U.S. democracy.

“It is a self-destructive code that has been planted in our society right w," Orlowski said in an interview with Associated Press.

tion of modern social media as a malign force that has hyptized us into mindlessly scrolling distracting feeds, fostered division and elevated previously marginal groups and ideologies in ways that undermine social cohesion isn't particularly new. For past several years, it's been subject of Silicon Valley mea culpas (at individual, if t corporate, level), foreboding news articles and acemic studies and books .

Some tech-company engineers and executives have gone so far as to keep ir own children off phones and social media. And a number of engineers have also been quitting high-paying techlogy jobs rar than continuing to contribute to problems y believe ir employers have caused.

latest example surfaced Tuesday when Washington Post disclosed that a Facebook engineer h written a lengthy internal letter explaining why he was leaving company. "I can longer stomach contributing to an organization that is profiting off hate in US and globally,” wrote Ashok Chandwaney, who worked at Facebook for five and half years.

“ Social Dilemma” is culmination of a three-year project aimed at making severity of an extremely complicated problem easier for n-tech s to grasp — and perhaps motivating people to take action to prevent worse consequences.

film pulls toger disparate thres of its argument through revealing — and sometimes chilling — insights from former executives at Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. se are set against backdrop of a fictional family dicted to screens filled with manipulative content served up by a ruthless set of algorithms embodied by actor Vincent Kariser, best kwn playing exec Pete Campbell in TV series “M Men."

Tristan Harris, a former Google executive who plays a leing role in film, said he hopes “ Social Dilemma" can wake up society way Ralph Ner's book “Unsafe At Any Speed" spurred introduction of seat-belt laws and Al Gore's award-winning 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth" sharpened focus on climate changes caused by human-generated greenhouse gases.

“What I am really hoping is this film will be first time we have a shared truth, a shared reality about breakdown of our shared reality," Harris told Associated Press in an interview.

Harris, w president of Center for Humane Techlogy, began sharing his disillusionment while he was still working at Google, and some of his posts about subject caught Orlowski's attention. two h kwn each or while attending Stanford University, paving way for m to reunite on a film that y both felt was important to finish before this vember's U.S. presidential election.

“I don't want to have false optimism that we would shift election or swing election, but I think it's an important part of conversation," Orlowski said. “ more we can recognize how this software is invisibly reshaping our society and ackwledge and understand this is a reality we are living in right w, n we can work to improve that."