We are screwed. Well and truly. That’s the feeling I got after watching Your Attention Please at SXSW over the weekend. If you’ve seen the film The Social Dilemma, then you’ll know the feeling (many of the talking heads are in both films). But it’s not the only feeling I experienced. There were also feelings of reverence and awe for the parents of children who had committed suicide that are pushing Congress to put guardrails on social media (a sysyphian task if there ever was one) and feelings of inspiration by the work of people building real community. But…still…the overwhelming feeling is of fear and despair.
From the SXSW program description: “A new generation of parents, teens, and reformers are fighting back against Big Tech’s agenda to define the future of human connection. From Kristin, a mother pursuing legislative reform after losing her son, to Trisha, a young programmer building technology to stop cyberbullying, the film reveals how deeply the attention economy is reshaping us. Blending intimate human stories with insights from leading experts in tech reform and digital wellbeing, Your Attention Please asks some of the most urgent questions of our time: Can we reclaim our autonomy? Can technology be redesigned to serve humanity? And what does a healthier relationship with the digital world look like for us and our kids?”
The through-lines of the documentary are talking heads explaining the addiction-based algorithms of social media; Trisha Prabhu, Tristan Harris, et al arguing for more ethical, empathetic platforms; parents fighting for the passage of KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act); and communities like The Offline Club working to draw individuals away from their phones and into more organic, in-person encounters and community. Perhaps the most frustrating (and heart-breaking) element of the film is the inability of Congress to pass KOSA, which shouldn’t be surprising given how deeply in bed representatives are with the social media lobbyists, who spent up to $90M to block it. But what’s equally frustrating are the critiques from both the right and the left (the former fearing that it will police conservative speech and the later fearing censorship of LGBTQIA+ voices), which all feels like fiddling while Rome burns.
But what feels most shocking about the film is that in the time between the release of The Social Dilemma and Your Attention Please the tidal wave of AI has so completely overwhelmed us. It feels like a bit of a coda in this film, but it is a powerful and nightmarish one. The film closes, in part, with a reference to an instance in which a young teen committed suicide as a result of a conversation/relationship with an AI chat bot. Let that sink in.
Your Attention Please should be required viewing for anyone with a smart phone and/or a social media account (which feels like everyone), but especially parents. I’ve seen numerous docs about the dangers of social media, and yet I still cling to my cellphone…and daily scroll Instagram…and pay for boosted posts on Facebook…and, and, and. And in the process of all this engagement, Your Attention Please points out how I am the product that is being sold to these companies and that being commodified in such a way is draining my own agency. We all know that we need to fight to reclaim our agency. That may start by simply being more mindful of our social media and technology use, but how can we trust our own mindfulness when these technologies have been rewiring our minds for the last twenty years?
Your Attention Please is currently looking for distribution. To stay up-to-date on when and where you can screen this vital film, visit: https://www.yourattentionplz.com/.