 All right, the social dilemma. This is the popular documentary that you may have seen being promoted on social media that we should all stop using social media because it's evil, addictive, manipulative. It takes our data and sells it to advertisers. So I thought that I should make a video about this because, well, I use social media in my business and I teach other people how to use social media in their business. So let me share with you my thoughts on the social dilemma. All right, the first thing I'll say is that there's one thing I agree with about the social dilemma, which is children. Children should definitely be guided, maybe even restricted from using things like Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, to some extent YouTube, although YouTube has YouTube for kids. But yes, but here's the thing. Just like we restrict or moderate children's behavior in other areas of life, such as their social life, who are they hanging out with? What are they doing when they're hanging out? Is it taking too much time away from their other activities? How is it affecting their mental and emotional development? We don't say, well, children should stop hanging out with people. No, we just say, well, you gotta hang out but hang out responsibly. Social media is essentially a global virtual social life. They are interacting with other human beings or content created by other human beings, and of course by artificial intelligence as well. But it is affecting their mental development and emotional development. So of course, if we care about our kids or the children in our lives, we're gonna be cognizant and guiding them towards using it responsibly. Same thing with junk food. We don't allow kids just eat as much as junk food as they want. We moderate that. We say, well, it's pleasurable and maybe we allow them to indulge every now and then but then it's not something that they should just have their own free reign. So of course, children or anybody that you feel they need that guidance because their mental health or whatever should be guided in that way. Similarly, we should be guiding ourselves. If aren't you a responsible adult with free will? I hope so. So those of you watching this, I hope are adults that are responsible with free will. And if so, shouldn't you be guiding yourself and your behavior on social media or are you gonna give away all your power and say, oh, it's Facebook's fault. Facebook manipulates me. It makes it so interesting. It's like a lottery. It's like being in a casino. I can't help myself. Is that really your argument that you can't help yourself? Well, that's the phrase is, if you can't help yourself then I'm sorry. But the truth with a capital T is of course you can help yourself. Who else is gonna help you if not yourself? First of all, people can try to help you but if you don't help yourself, you're not gonna benefit from anybody else's help. And if you are gonna give your power over a way, it's not just social media that's manipulating you. Television has been manipulating us for decades. And before that, it was the radio that manipulated us. And before that, it was books that manipulated us. Ever since books were created, I mean, you could look back, I think it was like ancient Greek. There were, yeah, in ancient Greek times, there were complaints about how books are gonna ruin our minds because it's going to influence us in this way or that way. Come on, ever since content has been available to humankind, people have complained that, oh, it's manipulating us. Yes, social media is more powerful because now it has our sort of behavior and it's able to give us content that it thinks we want. So here, so let me be really clear about what Facebook and YouTube and Instagram and Twitter, what are they trying to do? Are they trying to manipulate us? No, that's not the intent, that's not the profit models manipulate. No, the profit model is to give people what is so pleasurable to them that they're going to keep coming back and they're gonna stay there. And so the advertisers can put ads in front of them because that's how we make money. We make money by selling people's attention to the advertisers. So how do we get their attention? We study what their behavior is. What articles do you click on? As you scroll, what topics do you hover longer than others? Yes, they time, of course. I already knew this before watching the documentary. I already knew all this. The documentary taught me nothing new about what social media is doing to us. I knew this all along. And I just, and I'll get to how I use social media but it times everything. How long do you stay on the topic? Okay, so now they know they're interested in that topic whether they captivate you in some way. If you keep scrolling past something, they're gonna say, well, that didn't captivate you. So based on that behavior, they're gonna say, well, let's serve that person more of the stuff that captivates them because we want their attention because the advertisers make us money. Of course. Do you want the social media sites to not understand you? And so therefore serve you boring stuff? Let's be clear about this. There are certain websites you used to go to that you don't go to anymore because it's boring to you now or you outgrew it. Well, that website failed in keeping your attention. Facebook is really smart because Facebook is obviously dynamic Instagram, YouTube, all the platforms. They're dynamic. They keep serving you the content that you get captivated by. So whose responsibility is it? Well, obviously you have at least 50% responsibility because you can turn it off anytime or you can scroll past something anytime and train the algorithms to say, well, no, I don't want that kind of stuff. Let me keep going. And yes, I want this. I'm gonna click on it because then it'll give me more of this stuff in the future. So whose responsibility is it? At least 50% is yours. I would say it's more like 80% is your responsibility. And maybe 20% is social media's responsibility for giving you things that are so addictive that you actually want. You won't be addicted by something that's not pleasurable to you, obviously. So guide ourselves well. So the other thing I wanna say is this. If people are gonna blame social media and say, we're gonna stop using it, we're gonna make sure they're regulated so they're not so entertaining and addictive, this is going to be the same argument for the next technology that's virtual reality. I have never used virtual reality. Well, I have maybe in like really advanced video games at some arcade, it's kind of like virtual reality, but I don't have a virtual reality device at home. I don't know if you do or not, but can you imagine one day when many of our homes have virtual reality devices, you think Facebook is addicting? You haven't seen anything yet. The virtual reality is fully immersive. You feel like you're in a different world. And of course the VR companies are going to program, they're gonna study, I mean, come on, when there's VR, when there's virtual reality, they know what way you're turning, what way you're looking, they know what building you're going into in the virtual world, they know everything, who you're talking to, they know all the content. Of course the VR companies are gonna make it even more addictive. They're like, oh, you'd like to do these kinds of activities on virtual reality. We're gonna make sure to serve you more of that content. So it's not social media. It's really any kind of entertainment is what we're really talking about. And any kind of entertainment needs our own moderation of ourselves, self-responsibility. It shouldn't be called the social dilemma, it should be called the self-dilemma, right? So here's the thing, every technology is an opportunity to practice self-control. Every technology and every substance is an opportunity to practice mindfulness and self-moderation. And if you practice self-moderation and mindfulness, that is going to benefit you in all areas of life, not just with that technology. All right, so the next thing I wanna talk about, the next point is that social media is a blessing to advertisers like me. And maybe like you, if you run Facebook ads or have you thought about running Facebook ads to grow your business, to grow your audience or Instagram ads or any other social media ads, social media knows 1,000 data points about you. They know what topics you hover over before you scroll past it. They know what you click on, like I said, all those things. They know what kinds of groups you tend to participate in. They know everything about you, right? I mean, all of your interests in terms of content, how you interact on that platform. So because they know you so well, they allow me to reach you. If they didn't know you well, I wouldn't be able to reach you because then they would just say, well, we don't know anything about our users. So we're just gonna put your videos in front of random people. That's not gonna help us advertisers. That's not gonna help us small businesses to reach people like you. And by the way, most of the advertisers on social media are small businesses like myself. We're not trying to manipulate the election or anything. Of course, there are that kind of elements too, but most of us advertisers are just trying to get our content and our offerings in front of the right people, which is you. So if there's two sides to it. One is if you are on social media and you always see ads that are not relevant to you, that are not interesting to you, you're gonna be annoyed by advertisers because they're like, ah, these ads are stupid, they're boring, they're not interesting, they're too intrusive. But if social media knows you well, they're gonna give you ads that feel like it was meant for you. They're gonna be, you're gonna see, if it's the way it's supposed to work, everybody, is that they're supposed to know you so well that when you see ads, it feels like, wow, this product was built just for me. This company somehow knows me well enough to put this thing in front of me. I'm so glad I know about this pillow, this shoe, this online course, this service. I'm so glad I know it exists, or I'm so glad I was reminded of it. That's how it's supposed to work. It's that they know you well enough to do that kind of thing where you don't feel like it's annoying. You're supposed to feel like it's perfect for you. That's how, that's what I'm trying to do. So, and for us advertisers, that's how it's supposed to work too. We're hoping that the social media platforms know everything about us so that we can put our things in front of just the right people. You have problems in your life that I can solve, but I should be, you see what I mean? Like if social media doesn't know your problems, I can't, as a business owner, I can't put my solutions in front of the problems that people have. So like for example, social media doesn't know me well. It's gonna put like trucks, advertising for trucks in front of me. I don't care about trucks. I care about climate change. I don't wanna see trucks. I get offended by it, right? Like don't show me another GMC ad. It's like, you see what I mean? Or let's say you're offended by veganism. I don't know, you're like, you're big into eating meat. And if they show you a vegan ad, you're gonna be like, no, this is terrible. I don't want this. You want the ads to be tailored to you for your own experience. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? You'd rather see bad ads or good ads, right? And of course, if you don't see ads, I don't wanna see any ads. Well, if you don't wanna see any ads, social media is going to go away and you won't have this tool anymore. You see what I mean? Like however it plays out, however reality plays out, there's gonna be some technology that tries to know you well so that it can then sell your attention to advertisers so that it can be a good fit. Think of it as matchmaking. You don't wanna be matched with bad people. You wanna be matched with people who have just the right solutions for you. You see what I mean? So okay, so that's the advertisers. And it's never been easier for us business owners to reach people like you. It's never, there's no other thing that's easier than Facebook and Instagram ads to reach just the right people. Do you know of anything else? I'm a business coach. I don't know of anything else. If you know of an easier way to reach just the right people at scale, please, please let me know because then I would love to use it and teach it. But right now there is nothing else. There's nothing else besides Facebook and Instagram ads that is easier for any business owner to reach just the right people and to reach as many of the right people as they want. So that's amazing. It's a blessing to advertisers which are most advertisers are small business owners. Okay. All right, so the last thing I'll say is this. For the people who are trying to boycott social media, so I'm not gonna use social media anymore. I don't wanna contribute to this, you know, casino thing, you know, this manipulation and this deception and this whatever. Here's the thing, you, all of us good people can leave social media, but the technology is so convenient and so entertaining that most of the people, most of humanity is still going to use it. So us few small, you know, good people are going to leave. Most of the people are still gonna keep using it. So let me ask you the question. Do you want to leave most of the people to the wolves? Or wouldn't you rather most of the people have the opportunity to occasionally see good content from you? You have a choice. You can either participate with your good content and so therefore add to the conversation or you can leave the conversation and let the pool of social media be shallow junk content. It's up to you. I would rather stay in the conversation rather than leave. So let's stay in the conversation. This is where people's attention is gonna be. You think you're gonna get all your friends off social media? Good luck, not gonna happen. It's too entertaining, it's too convenient. All their other friends are there. Good luck, it's not gonna happen. My friends have tried, they're back. So it's, if you can't beat them, join them and it's not something you need to be. You just need to be there as a good presence, using the ads, all of us can use ads, right? And one more thing I'll have to say is this. I really decry the social media platforms being restricted and being regulated. I detest this. You know why? Because as an advertiser, every time I go on, there's yet another restriction that I can't talk about this or I can't talk about that. Those of us who run Facebook and Instagram ads know, it's freaking annoying. Oh, now they say we can't talk about anything related to anything suggesting negative mental health. We can't talk about that because we might trigger people. It's like, oh no, I'm trying to help people with anxiety, no, no, no. You can't use the word anxiety or your anxiety. You're gonna trigger people. Really? I'm trying to help them. I'm trying to give them some good content to help them with anxiety or depression. No, you can't say that. See, Facebook ads restricts us from this stuff. And YouTube ads probably does too. It's to some extent and other platforms too. Oh, you can't mention the word Trump. Even if my article is just mentioning Trump or Biden or whatever for mental health purposes. No, you can't say that. You can't say anything political is highly restricted. It is on Facebook ads now. It's like if it's very restricted now because it's being regulated or they want to prevent regulation so they're trying to restrict themselves. Mark Zuckerberg is doing his best, people. That's my experience. Having been on Facebook since mid-2000s and watched the evolution and watched and been an active advertisers for all these years, I see it becoming more and more restricted because they're trying to do their best even though there's no congressional restriction yet, regulation, the platforms are trying to restrict themselves. So anyway, that's my opinion about the social dilemma. I'd love to know what your thoughts are and your questions. And I hope this is helpful. I'm George Kau, authentic business coach. I love talking about how do we build a business that is based on meaningful engagement and meaningful impact on society and also on our own inner life. All right, I wish you well and I look forward to your questions and your comments below. Take care.