The Social Dilemma
Suicide and self-harm are complex and never caused by one factor alone. Problematic screen use, cyberbullying, harmful content, and online exploitation may increase risk or intensify existing distress. If someone is in immediate danger or emotional crisis in the United States, call or text 988.
Outside the U.S.? Find your local helpline at findahelpline.com.
The Social Dilemma pairs on-camera interviews with former social-media and search-engine insiders with a dramatized narrative about a fictional teenager's smartphone use. Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist, is one of the film's central interview subjects and serves as much of its narrative through-line, walking viewers through internal design meetings and behavioral-psychology techniques he says shaped how recommendation algorithms compete for attention. The film cites third-party data associating steep increases in self-harm-related hospitalizations and depressive symptoms among American teenage girls with the period of widespread smartphone and social-media adoption, presenting this as a documented association rather than proof of a single cause. It became one of the most widely viewed mainstream introductions to concerns about engagement-optimized design. TechKids Foundation includes it here specifically for Harris's central on-camera design-ethics role within the film, distinct from this library's existing entry cataloguing the film under director Jeff Orlowski-Yang's voice profile.
Harris's own April 2021 Senate testimony describes the film as having been seen by an estimated 100 million-plus people in roughly 190 countries and 30 languages.
Orlowski, Jeff (director), featuring Tristan Harris. The Social Dilemma. Exposure Labs / Netflix. Sundance premiere January 26, 2020; Netflix release September 9, 2020.