5 Reasons Almost Every Family Should Watch The Social Dilemma
Yesterday was a cloudy, cold day here in Maine, so my little family decided to push our hiking plans to the weekend and watch a documentary for the end of our homeschool day instead. When we saw the preview for The Social Dilemma on Netflix, both of my boys said they were intrigued, so we watched it.
I was fired up from the first 10 minutes.
And while I don't normally catch things on the first day they come out and I almost never feel strongly enough about a documentary to recommend it to almost every family I know, I am recommending this one.
It's so closely tied to what threatens family togetherness right now that I couldn't live with myself if I didn't recommend it.
Here's why I believe *almost* every family should watch The Social Dilemma tonight:
#1 - It raises the question, "How much screen time is too much?"
This is a question I hear from a lot of my friends, and it's a question I grapple with in my house almost daily. I've been on the side of strict screen limits and encouraging my family to shut down the devices for over 15 years now, and it's still hard every single day. This documentary shows what happens to our brains when we don't watch ourselves in this area. It shows parents that we're dealing with something no other generation of parents has had to deal with before. It made my kids understand why I'm so "nosy" about their screentime and why I put my phone in the closet with theirs when it's not screentime.
#2 - It makes parents think about our own screen limits.
I couldn't watch this documentary without thinking about how many parents I've seen in public staring at their screens while their kids beg for their attention (even going so far as to lick trashcans) right beside them - including myself. It's funny how I often think "one more email" or "one more response" is a valid reason to keep my eyes on my screen while my children wait for me (which is totally why I deleted all email apps from my phone a few months ago - it's helped a lot). The absence of the parents in this documentary speaks to a lot for me, but the way they deal with their kids' screen addictions (and don't deal with them) speaks volumes. I was changed.
#3 - It exposes what's behind our screens.
We all know we shouldn't care about 90% of the things we look at on our phones, but we don't often know why they're showing up on our phones and what's behind the curtain causing them to pop into our consciousness. I've been recognizing my own unhealthy relationship with Instagram and Facebook for a while now. As someone trying to "make it" as a new author, I know it's important to use those platforms as tools to find families who would enjoy my work, but I find it hard to ignore the addiction-causing rewards those platforms were built on. It's the same for every person who longs for genuine connection and hopes to connect using the internet. This documentary shows why we can't give in to it.
#4 - It shows what happens to family togetherness when we're not intentional about it.
My whole family chuckled at the dinner scene in this documentary because it's exactly the kind of thing that happens. I won't give it away here, but I will just say that I certainly saw myself in the mom who takes all of the devices away and says something like, "Okay, how was everyone's day?" The outcome disturbed me, and I wished I could jump into the screen and give that family some fun things to do together, but in the end, I realized it was only a show, right? Thankfully, we can be intentional about family togetherness. We can choose to build deep relationships with our kids. We don't have to be subject to the social dilemma plaguing our generation.
#5 - It's already under attack.
In searching for the link to the documentary this morning, I've already run across articles trying to tell us what we should think about it, saying this documentary perpetuates America's problems, that it leaves out the real issues, and that it makes the problem worse. This is exactly the kind of thing the documentary exposes - media telling us what to think and changing our families because of it. At first, I was afraid the documentary would be removed from Netflix and buried before I could recommend it to my friends, but now I see what might really happen to keep families from benefiting from it - our minds might be made up for us before we can watch it for ourselves.
I say watch it and think for yourself.
*NOTE: I say *ALMOST* every family should watch it because there are some disturbing scenes and topics that are not appropriate for every age. It's rated PG-13, but I recommend parents watch this before sharing it with children under the age of 16.
Also, if your family doesn't struggle with screen limits, or if you're one of those parents never tempted to scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, or YouTube, etc. and you never get "sucked into your phone", you don't need this stress in your life. (I actually would love some pointers from you.)
At the end of the day, if you watch this documentary and think it's not important or not full of truth, or not full of enough truth for you, that's okay. At least you've given it a shot and asked yourself, "What can I learn?"
I would love to know what you think about this documentary (after watching it).
Leave a comment below and join the discussion.