Social media has been a prominent controversy over the past years as there have been multiple documentaries and articles to discuss its effects. The majority of the documentaries and articles talking about social media, have portrayed it as the villain of the story. A recent documentary by Netflix, known as “The Social Dilemma”, sheds a new light on social media as it shows perspectives from old employers from these companies, discussing the effect social media has on mental health and different religious, racial, and ethnic communities. In this documentary, these points of view reveal to us that the creators didn’t intend for social media to be a negative platform.

However, one must consider the positive impacts of social media first. The Black Lives Matter movement is a prime example of the positives of social media. It has become one of the world’s biggest civil rights movements as social media has allowed for spreading awareness on a higher scale of injustice against black people. Other events social media has played a significant role in spreading awareness on the Yemen crisis, the Australian and Amazon wildfires at the beginning of this year, the injustices of ICE, and many more.

In addition to this, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has become a more prominent part of daily life, where everyone is social distancing or quarantining. Social media allows them to connect with people even if they can't see them in person anymore. These apps may play a role in reducing depression in people who thrive off of socializing even if it isn’t in person. However, that does not mean that it is a replacement for real-life so its effects may not be very prominent. Due to the influx of people using social media now, the CDC and WHO organizations have also been able to spread more awareness about COVID-19 and how to stay safe.

Even though social media may be ideal for promoting and raising awareness of certain issues, there still is a plethora of fake news on the web. It was said that fake news spreads 60 times faster than real news. While that might be true, it's really up to each person using social media to find a trusted source and make sure that they are educated correctly and not misdirected. One of the cons of “The Social Dilemma”, included an example they gave of a teenager named Ben who had told his mom he would not use his phone for 7 days but ended up using it after two or three days. As soon as he picked it up, he was shown a lot of protest advertisements and how voting is bad. After only a day of seeing such posts, he was willing to take strong actions for a movement he knew very little about. This was very unrealistic as you could assume not many people would be willing to risk their lives and futures on a topic they barely know anything about. The fact is that fake news is spread in many different ways than just social media. For instance, many media companies such as The Huffington Post and FOX News are known to give biased information based on their standpoint in politics. The Huffington Post, for example, is known to be far left in its articles thus presenting information that primarily shows the republicans as bad and the democrats as good. FOX News is known to do the same but only showing the democrats as bad and the republicans as good. Both of these companies are known to say just about anything, whether it has been proven true or not, to spread their ideas. This is why it is up to you to find a reliable source that gives you unbiased information to allow yourself to form your own opinions.

Another misconception portrayed in traditional media is they often indicate that social media users judge themselves or compare themselves to others. TikTok and Instagram have made it clear that spreading body positivity is more prominent than negativity. The majority of content on these apps are transforming into platforms for people to be proud of their ethnic and physical features that aren’t really seen in traditional western media. In addition to this, the media has been known to exhibit users’ obsession with likes; something that was even discussed in “The Social Dilemma”. It is understandable for older articles discussing this but with Instagram’s new updates this isn’t an issue anymore. Instagram removed the visibility of the number of likes someone receives which causes many people to not dwell on it as much anymore. Although the documentary mentioned this topic, it neglected to mention the update when this was a big plot point.

From a creative standpoint, “The Social Dilemma” is a highly rated documentary. Others should watch it to form their own opinions on these topics. Though this article highlighted the pros of social media, there is still a lot of negativity there. The purpose of this article was to bring awareness to these positives because traditional western media tends to only focus on the negatives. These platforms are a mix of good and bad, as with anything else, however, it doesn't deserve the many misconceptions presented by traditional media considering it to only be negative and overlooking its positives.