Introduction

If you have often found yourself wondering why materialistic things don’t bring you long-lasting happiness, or how meaningless existence seems to be, you must watch the Netflix Documentary “The Social Dilemma”.

Now, having watched it (and being mesmerized) by the way the documentary progresses, to the social dilemma quotes that have been sprinkled throughout the documentary, I jotted down a few: Several Social Dilemma quotes that made me uncomfortable about the reality that I am currently living.

Social Dilemma Quotes I live by

1. “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product” — Daniel Hövermann

I look at social media outlets like Instagram and Facebook, and find myself asking the elusive question: Hey, what is their method of making money? Facebook: Yes, I see ads and all but what about Instagram? Finally, I have an answer now:

It is my personal information and my attention. Procrastinating on all these apps makes us feel like we are just harmlessly passing our time, but we are actually getting sold to these firms in ways that seem harmless but are actually worth billions of dollars.

2. “There are only two industries that call their customers “users”: illegal drugs and software.” — Edward Tufte

Think about the porn industry. Mindlessly jerking off to fake orgasms and watching imaginary people with no real chemistry. A lot of social dilemma quotes make you believe that you are slowly getting sucked into the organized destruction of mankind. In this case: leading you to fall into an addiction to PMO. That’s all in the grand design.

Talk about psychopathic tendencies, but it comes as no surprise that in the grand scheme of things too: large and small corporations alike, we are just users and those that get used to these intricate systems.

We are the users but also, the raw material.

These social dilemma quotes make us feel something we knew all along.

We are bombarded daily with things to buy, unreal images of photoshopped celebrities – destroying our mental health in the process. But, this does not matter to corporations as to them, we are just another number that adds to their user count, and the more of us there are, the more money they are minting. Of course, this adds to social media dehumanization, rapidly increasing our daily intake of photoshopped images without a thought of how that changes people psychologically or emotionally. As long as they’re making money, nothing else matters. 

3. “Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.” — Sophocles 

All social dilemma quotes point out the twisted take that all these social media giants have on us, however:

This one simply points out the fact that just like every coin has good and bad sides, so does every human, and so does – every invention. Whatever it is that you consider a convenience, a blessing – for example social media.

Looking up all these social dilemma quotes makes you believe that building relationships with people in different parts of the globe aimed to eradicate loneliness, is just the opposite of what has been happening. Studies show a significant increase in the number of people who have felt lonely in their lifetime.

It is not the sword that’s lethal, but the hand that wields it.

4. “We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection because we get rewarded in these short-term signals: hearts, likes, thumbs up and we conflate that with value and we conflate it with the truth. And instead, what it is is fake brittle popularity that’s short term and that leaves you even more, and admit it, vacant and empty before you did it. Because that enforces you into a vicious cycle where you’re like what’s the next thing that I need to do now because I need it back? Think about that compounded by two billion people and then think about how then people react to then to the perceptions of others.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO of Social Capital

Social dilemma quotes share a feeling that incites that sense of unease. As if it is something that we have known for a long, but choose to ignore.

As stated above, social media has become a source of constant comparison and prolonged loneliness. Likes and shares aren’t genuine, just a mindless double tap on the screen. We tend to compare ourselves to people and compare our belongings to ones that aren’t even genuine. Photos are just that – photoshopped images meant to warp our self-image, and expensive items – a mirage.

5. “We’re training and conditioning a whole new generation of people that when we are uncomfortable or lonely or uncertain or afraid we have a digital pacifier for ourselves that is kind of atrophying our own ability to deal with that.” — Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google and co-founder of Centre for Humane Technologies

Studies show we are rapidly deteriorating in our capability to handle sorrow and pain. Whenever the slightest inconvenience happens, we put on our noise-canceling headpiece and put on music or Instagram reels.

The one thing that social dilemma quotes achieve is to help you understand that It’s not phones we put on airplane mode, but ourselves. Oblivious to our surroundings – isolated in our own little bubble.