The Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" examines social media and digital platforms not merely as technological innovations, but as instruments of a new economic and social order that is transforming human behavior. One of the aspects that makes the documentary particularly significant is that much of its criticism comes not from outsiders to the technology industry, but from people who previously worked at Google, Facebook, Twitter, and similar technology companies and witnessed firsthand the development of these systems. What we are confronted with, therefore, is not a simple rejection of technology, but an insider critique of how platforms initially developed with positive aims, such as connecting people and facilitating access to information, have gradually evolved into something quite different.

Perhaps the documentary’s central argument is best summarized by the well-known statement: "If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” We use platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and TikTok largely free of charge. Yet in reality, these services are not free; instead of paying with money, we pay with our attention and our data. The platforms’ customers are not their users, but advertisers. What is primarily sold to advertisers is our attention. The longer we remain in front of our screens, and the more content we view, click on, like, and share, the more economic value we generate for these platforms.

However, "The Social Dilemma" makes a much more important distinction at this point. The real product is not merely our attention or the data collected about us. At a more advanced level, what becomes truly valuable is the "gradual, slight, imperceptible change in our own behavior and perception.” Digital platforms do not simply monitor what we do; drawing on the enormous amounts of data they collect, they increasingly seek to predict what we will do next. When countless behavioral traces are brought together – such as which videos we watch until the end, which photographs hold our attention for a few seconds longer, which news stories we click on, what we like, whom we follow, and which products we purchase – it becomes possible to construct increasingly detailed profiles of us. As our data accumulates, predictions become more accurate not only about what we do, but also about who we are and what we are likely to do in the future.

It is precisely at this point that the new economic structure Shoshana Zuboff calls "surveillance capitalism” becomes particularly meaningful. For the first time in the history of capitalism, it has become possible to continuously monitor and measure human behavior on such a vast scale and in such detail, and to transform it into economic value. Yet the critical threshold emerges at the boundary between prediction and manipulation. If predicting what a person will do is valuable, then being able to increase the likelihood that the person will behave in a particular way is even more valuable. The digital economy thus evolves from a system that merely observes human behavior into one that increasingly seeks to shape it.

For this reason, the concept of "persuasive technology,” which is strongly emphasized in the documentary, is critically important. Persuasive technology refers to technologies designed to change people’s behavior in a particular direction. Insights from psychology concerning human behavior, habits, reward mechanisms, and addiction are incorporated into digital design. From this perspective, notifications, likes, recommendations, infinite scrolling, autoplay, and personalized content feeds cease to be merely innocent technical features designed to make platforms easier to use. Each of them can function as a mechanism for drawing users’ attention back to the screen and keeping them on the platform for longer periods. The effects of this process are especially significant for young people. Increasingly, we have begun to evaluate our lives through short-term digital signals. Being liked, followed, shared, and visible have become indicators of social acceptance. The number of likes a post receives can affect how a person feels about themselves. Yet the popularity generated in this environment is often fleeting, artificial, and extremely fragile. Nevertheless, when individuals begin to associate these short-term signals with their sense of worth in real life, a dangerous cycle emerges. When they receive the attention they expect, they experience a brief sense of pleasure; when that attention diminishes, they return to the system in an attempt to experience the same feeling again.

"The Social Dilemma" focuses on the debate surrounding rising levels of anxiety, vulnerability, and depression among young people, which is therefore particularly important. Of course, it would be misleading to attribute the mental health problems experienced by young people solely to social media. Yet we also need to recognize that we are facing an entirely new situation. For the first time in human history, billions of people – especially children and young people – spend much of their day interacting with systems that have an extraordinarily detailed understanding of psychological vulnerabilities and whose economic success depends on holding users’ attention for as long as possible. The problem, therefore, is not simply "spending too much time on the phone.” The more fundamental issue is growing up in an environment designed to influence human behavior.

At this point, the issue becomes directly related to human freedom. Freedom is not merely about having choices available to us; the conditions under which those choices are presented also matter. On digital platforms, users perceive themselves as autonomous individuals making free choices. They believe that they decide which video to watch, which news story to read, or which account to follow. Yet if algorithms determine which videos, news stories, or people are presented to us in the first place, then the environment in which free will operates has already been designed in advance. People are still making choices, but increasingly they are choosing from options selected for them by others.

One of the most disturbing aspects of "The Social Dilemma" is that it demonstrates how this mechanism transforms not only individual behavior but also the social and political sphere. The primary criterion for platforms is not whether a piece of content is true, but how much engagement it generates. Algorithms cannot directly measure truth, but they can measure clicks, shares, likes, comments, and time spent on the screen with remarkable precision. As a result, content that provokes anger, fear, or astonishment can gain an advantage within the system precisely because it generates greater engagement.

This gives rise to a serious problem that might be described as "disinformation for profit.” The connection between the truthfulness of a message and its circulation is becoming increasingly weak. The more people you can reach with an unverified or false message, and the more engagement you can generate, the greater the economic value you can create. A platform does not even need to promote a particular piece of misinformation for ideological reasons. The economic model itself can reward sensational, provocative, and polarizing content. Disinformation thus ceases to be merely a malfunction of the system and becomes one of the natural outcomes that the existing business model is capable of producing.

The social consequences of this are far more serious. Even while living in the same society, people can increasingly begin to inhabit different realities. As algorithms continue to present us with content similar to what we have previously shown interest in, liked, or reacted to, our existing views are constantly reinforced. Over time, we begin not to hear opposing views — or even not to want to hear them. Eventually, social groups may emerge that live in the same country but no longer listen to one another, trust one another, or agree on a shared reality. The problem is no longer simply that people think differently. Democratic societies are, after all, built on differences. The real danger arises when the common ground on which people can communicate with one another disappears.

From this perspective, the documentary’s warning that "the masses are being made ignorant” deserves particular attention. There is a striking paradox here. Never in human history has access to information been as easy as it is today. Yet greater access to information does not automatically mean greater access to accurate information. On the contrary, amid an overwhelming abundance of information, distinguishing what is true can become increasingly difficult. More importantly, the information we encounter does not come randomly from a neutral pool of information. It is selected by algorithms that use what is known about us to calculate which content is most likely to provoke a response. As a result, while people may believe that they are seeing the world as it is, they may in fact be seeing a world that has been selected specifically for them.

The Matrix analogy used in the documentary is particularly striking for precisely this reason: "How do you wake up from the Matrix when you don’t know you’re in the Matrix?” In an environment where manipulation is explicit, people can recognize and resist it. But when influence becomes invisible, the situation changes. If we believe that our choices are entirely our own, we are unlikely to question the environment in which those choices are made or the mechanisms through which they are shaped. The greatest power of digital systems, therefore, lies not so much in their ability to influence us as in the fact that we may remain unaware that we are being influenced.

Moreover, "The Social Dilemma" was released in 2020. Since then, digital technologies have advanced considerably. With the emergence of generative artificial intelligence in particular, the problems raised by the documentary have entered an entirely new phase. In the age of social media, algorithms primarily determined which content we would see. In the age of artificial intelligence, however, technology no longer merely selects and presents content to us; it speaks directly to us, answers our questions, writes texts for us, assists us in making decisions, and, over time, can learn our preferences and establish an increasingly personalized relationship with us. This transformation may represent a shift to a stage that goes far beyond the attention economy. In the age of social media, the primary economic value lay in capturing and holding human attention for as long as possible. In the age of artificial intelligence, this is increasingly accompanied by the capacity to become involved in how people think, make decisions, and make sense of the world. Therefore, the crucial questions are no longer limited to "What are we looking at?” but increasingly include "How do we think?” "What do we believe?” and even "How do we make our decisions?” As technology moves from directing human attention toward accompanying and potentially shaping our thinking processes, questions of human agency and freedom become far more central.