Which 2020 Netflix documentary explores the impact of social media algorithms and addiction?

The Social Dilemma is the 2020 Netflix documentary-drama about how social-media algorithms can encourage addiction and influence behaviour.

Directed by Jeff Orlowski, the film combines interviews with former technology employees, researchers, and public commentators with a fictional story about an American family. The interview sections discuss persuasive design, data collection, targeted advertising, misinformation, political polarisation, and the way platforms optimise feeds for engagement.

Its dramatized storyline follows teenagers whose lives are affected by notifications, compulsive checking, unrealistic social comparisons, and increasingly extreme recommendations. The film visualises algorithms as operators in a control room, a creative device that explains how prediction systems respond to user activity and attempt to keep people returning.

The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020 and was released globally on Netflix on September 9. It is often confused with The Social Network, a fictionalised film about Facebook’s origins, or The Great Hack, which focuses more specifically on data and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Social Dilemma is broader, examining the social consequences of platform design and algorithmic incentives.