Name: Ciela Lalvani

Social Justice Group: 2021-2022, Body Image and Social Media

Date of Fieldwork: May 6, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):The Social Dilemma

Type of Fieldwork: Documentary

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

The Social Dilemma is a documentary which came out in 2020 and it is all about exposing the truth about social media and why it isn’t good for mental health. The documentary features people who previously worked at companies like Google and Facebook. I thought it was really interesting to see people who were involved with these big companies coming out and exposing the truth of why they think social media is bad.

The documentary has different characters involved with the dilemma. One of them is Isla, a young girl who gets addicted to her phone, and is influenced about what people say online. The issue gets so bad that she decides to take measures that hurt herself. The other character is Ben. Ben is Isla’s brother who also got addicted to his phone but is driven to something else. He looks at his friends status online specifically this one girl who he likes. He tries to change himself to be more like the guys she posts online. I think the overall message that the documentary is trying to say is that social media can be good, but when you use it too much it begins to take over your life, in all ways. The documentary is trying to get a message out because this is reality.