The Social Dilemma: Should I even be using LinkedIn?

Last week I watched Netflix’s haunting documentary, The Social Dilemma. In it some of the original team members from companies like #Apple, #Facebook and #Google come forward with their concerns about the wide spread repercussions from the social media phenomena, from increased teen suicides to the pending threat of civil war… If you haven’t already, can I recommend that you watch it. 

We’re all addicted to our personal devices (although I like to frequently deny this to my wife). That much I already knew. I was also aware of the increasingly accurate personalisation techniques used by such firms to offer us an incredibly bespoke service. What I hadn’t quite digested previously was the argument put forward in the show that the large tech companies are deliberately creating products to addict us to our personal devices; that they want us to be attached to them, because our attention is for sale. The more we look, the more dollars there are to be made. We are the product sold to the highest bidder. Terrifying.

The argument that The Social Dilemma makes is not that social media per se is bad (although none of the spokes people on the documentary will allow their kids to use it) but that the big tech companies that inadvertently (at least to begin with) made these technologies a little too user friendly have a social responsibility to try and redeem them and restore a crumbling society. The Facebook “Like” button - that its designers report was intended to spread joy and positivity - has undergone a social amelioration, now armed with the potential to provide an addictive dopamine hit for desperate teens, when if not met, can lead to self-loathing and self-harm among children.

It’s left my head whirring. Firstly, I am waking up to my own addiction, realising how many hours you can easily spend indeliberately on your smartphone - for me it’s scrolling my personalised news feed. I need more time in my life and it appears there’s an easy fix… Delete the app! Secondly, I was worried for my children’s future - what kind of society will they grow up in? Will my kids be negatively impacted by the facade of peer and influencer social media profiles and infinite advertising feeds promoting discontent? But most pertinent of all, as someone who has worked in business development for a number of years and as the CEO of a company (JustLend) due to launch soon, that will depend very much on social networks, not just for marketing but for its basic usage, I find myself faced with a moral dilemma. If the case is justifiable, that social media (and indeed other large tech companies) that harvest our data and provide addictive content to keep us virtually engaged really are a cause for societal unravel, is it OK that I utilise such tools?

For example, I spend a third of my working life on LinkedIn, sending out messages with the help of “plug-ins” and algorithmic “tools” and I schedule these messages to go out at the times when people are most likely to be active, for the very reason that I want to hook their attention. And with my start-up, I’m currently working on an investor deck to describe the viral nature of the marketing of the JustLend platform. The plan is to have some paid for Facebook Ad campaigns, but our premise is that users of our platform will push out their campaigns via their social networks to friends and families; and that as people “like” and comment on content, the JustLend brand will get picked up by social algorithms and propagated. My socially motivated venture will be yet another company among countless others vying for the attention (and downfall The Social Dilemma would suggest) of a predominantly unaware public.

Now, it’s easy to feel disdain and point your finger at the tech giants for their sinister tactics and engineers writing addiction-inducing algorithms fed by an overwhelming abundance of personally harvested data, but surely I have to turn the looking glass in on myself. I’m not intending anyone harm - quite the opposite, my whole goal is to level the playing field; to bring fair and accessible lending for all; and in my gig as a sales consultant, I am genuinely passionate about bringing together parties that can enhance each other’s businesses. But, in using social media and social tools to do this, am I exacerbating the problem?   

It doesn’t seem acceptable to conclude that everyone is doing it and to carry on ignorantly about my business. Neither does it seem feasible to throw in the towel under a defeatism that since almost all marketing and networking today will rely on platforms provided by these very software companies that my only alternative is to run a rural village shop. I’m keen to find a third way. Keen to be socially responsible, whilst professionally successful. I’d love to hear your thoughts: does using these tools make us part of the problem? How can we compete fairly if we don’t use these tools? What new ways of marketing and gaining customers can we think of that use the powerful tools the last decade has provided without seeing the detriment of the very fabric of society?

#thesocialdilemma #humanetechnology #socialmedia #addictedtomysmartphone #algorithm #personaldata #socialgood #surveillancecapitalism #netflix