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.

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Today my group and I had an interview with Erin Eichenstein. Ering Eichenstein works in marketing for facebook and instagram. She talked to us about how advertising on social media has changed through the last 10 years and how there is more diversity, but their still working on it. She also told us how their has to be certain requirements before posting an ad and how it has to fit the guidelines. One of the things she said is that ads try not so say “you” when marketing things. Towards the end of the interview we talked about goals being set to help fix negative body image standards. The main thing Erin said to do was continue this project because it really helps spread the word by calling out big social media platforms.

One thing that really stuck with me was when she said due to covid teens and kids have had less time to see their friends, therefore they go to social media as a way to stay active. This has overall changed teens mental heath as they spend more and more time on it each day. This really resonated with me because I can see it happening in our generation, and if we don’t try to put a more positive mindset on the things we see on social media, it could affect generations in the future.

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Last week my group and a few other groups and I went to the Paley Center to hear about women in the media. We watched clips from old shows, new shows, music videos, and commercials to see how media presents and make women look. We talked about comparisons between men and women in the media, and how the media makes women seem weaker, and more delicate, and how that can affect young girls. We also talked about the effect of comments at home that can make girls more insecure and not wanting to look a certain way.

Something that really resonated with me was this one commercial where kids where the ones being interviewed. It showed the interviewer asking kids, “How does a girl run?” The kids who were older ran weakly and the younger kids ran fast and didn’t care about how they look. This just shows how as kids grow up their perception of identity changes which is a big problem in the world of media today.

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Today my group and I had an interview with Lauren Smolar. Lauren Smolar is the Senior Director of Programs at the National Eating Disorders Association. She is important to our topic because she knows a lot about eating disorders, and in our case how they are effected by social media. I was actually suprised that giving what she does she said she believes social media is a great way to stay connected, learn more, and a good thing to have. However she thinks social media has a downside that needs to be fixed.

NEDA preparing for national eating disorders awareness week at the end of this month and is sharing peoples stories on their experience with eating disorders. They hope to do more in person events once it’s safe, but is happy with the way people are still coming to them for help during this time. I really enjoyed this interview because it gave us the perspective of a professional and we got to learn about what this organization is working to do next.

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This week I will present with my social justice group, about our topic Social Media and Body Image. We had a few articals about this critical issue and I am excited to show my classmates all that we learned so far. This issue is really important to me, because so many of us are on social media, we are all greatly affected by the things we scroll past every day. People trying to promote and live up to certain body types as well as shaming those who don’t have that body type is having an extremely negative impact on young girls and women. Since our group members all experience this first hand, we are devoted to learning more about it and coming up with potential solutions.

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