The Social Dilemma

Being a designer and reading aggressively about user personas, user experience and designing habit forming products, what I always used to envisage was how to help a user solve a problem efficiently while empowering them with technology. How amazing these products are which enable a kid to learn about the entire solar system in 10 minutes with beautiful animations or a senior citizen to book a cab in 30 seconds with just voice commands.
How amazing it was when Google introduced the find near me feature helping you to get to a restaurant or a photo throwback notification taking you back to the good old times, getting a reminder to hydrate yourself or just an inactivity alarm. All these features have in many ways made our lives much easier.
The documentary film Social Dilemma is a complete antidote to our infatuation with these products, and the film delivers its message in a very strong, engaging narrative. Kudos to director Jeff Orlowski for putting together such an amazing film.
At last, I want to end with famous author Nir Eyal’s quotes: “Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves (vitamins), but once the habit is formed, they become must-haves (painkillers).”