Plato’s New Cave

Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ was described in his Republic: in a cave are several men, chained, who can only look in front of them, at one of the cave’s walls. Behind them there is another wall and behind this wall there is a fire. The wall enables other men to hide and hold figurines high enough so that these would not be hidden by the wall. The fire projects the figurines’ shadows on the wall in front of the chained men. The figurines represent ‘men and other living things’. The chained men cannot see what is happening behind and can only believe that the shadows are real. If a figurine of a cat were to be held, the chained men would believe the figurine’s shadow to be an actual real cat – moving, delicately feline, in front of them.

After watching The Social Dilemma, a documentary to be found on Netflix, I was pushed to question my use of social media as well as its very nature. The documentary really got me to think for days and days – when quite suddenly, just like a revelation, I remembered Plato’s Allegory of the Cave; a text I had studied in high school. In an almost instinctive manner, the analogy between the Cave and social media was very clear to me. In fact, the Allegory of the Cave is so full of timeless truth that interpretation will always bloom from it. In this article, I will try to draw the analogy as precisely and in detail as possible. It will be quite obvious that my opinion on social media is rather negative. I only hope that this article will justify, in our readers’ eyes, my negativity.

I shall start by telling the tale once more, with some adjustments. The chained men who can only look in front of them at one of the cave’s walls, are us. Our addictions to social media chains us to always look at our phones and their constant notifications. The fire which helps projecting shadows on the wall is the light from our own screens, creating images on our phone’s surfaces, destroying our poor eyes. Finally, the whole manipulative system of the other men and their figurines could represent social media’s algorithms.

In The Social Dilemma, several major technicians who contributed to the creation of the social media that we use daily, reveal the mechanisms behind these platforms. In other words, the very men who hold the figurines come to tell us about their tricks. Their main thesis is that if we do not pay for using social media, there is obviously a catch. The catch resides in the algorithms that they themselves helped to create. The algorithms at the heart of social media are basically made to build our addiction and are purely restricting our freedom.

The only money that companies such as Facebook or Twitter can make come from the ads that they bomb at our faces. These ads are sent to users according to the information these companies hold about our interests, our browser research, what accounts we follow, what Youtube channels we watch. If one looked at surfboards all day, they are likely to later find ads for surfboards in between posts on their Instagram or Facebook feeds. Therefore, the platforms have all the reasons to create our addiction to their content, to keep us ‘connected’ and ensure that most of our time, we are seeing the ads.

The algorithms meant to keep us connected are based on the idea that one user should be kept closed-minded. It is more pleasant to get a pat on the back than to be confronted. Users are fed only with what they want to hear, what they like, what they agree with. This is highly dangerous because it means that the algorithms create for each user, one particular reality. False realities which ignore any different perspective. In The Social Dilemma, it is argued that these very algorithms contribute to the political polarisation of the people and their opinions with less room for nuanced, common middle-grounds, where the truth often lies. The algorithms not only reinforce opinions, but they also make one believe their opinions are shared by a majority - since one is not exposed to any sort of antithesis which would stimulate critical thinking. If you believe everyone else shares your opinions, it is only logical to consider an outside opinion as absurd, since you would think a consensus on a question makes the answer true.

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, it is imagined what would happen if one of the chained men were to break free. The man would first be drawn to the fire and would understand the treachery. He would then get out of the cave: the daylight would literally blind him and hurt him. The hurtful sun represents the discomfort of the dismantlement of one’s reality, the discomfort of confrontation. As the man would adjust to the new light, he would explore his surroundings and he would be quick to understand that behind shadows are the real objects. He would explore nature and understand his place within it. The free man would eventually come back to the Cave, in which his vision is now poor, and try to convince the other chained men of their enslaved nature and that the true reality is outside the cave. That is exactly what the protagonists of Netflix’s documentary do. They tell their audience that social media is not representative of reality, chaining us to our screened-devices, except that they also were the men behind the manipulation.

Social media can be considered indeed as a false reality in all possible ways. You are not really keeping in touch with your friends and family, and your Facebook friends are not friends. Liking and commenting under people’s pictures or posts make us feel like we did our part of the job, we maintained the contact, but in reality, we really did not. We did not because this is not a real conversation and this is not care. In fact, what you see from people on social media is not even them, it is not their lives. It is things that are only posted either to satisfy their own egos or because it would engender reactions from their audiences. Very rarely it is about how they feel or even what they genuinely think. We all only post about the good and pretty parts. You do not really care about all these people you follow; they just provide you with distraction. And the follow button means nothing: you are not a good activist of a human being because you follow Greenpeace on Twitter, or because you shared a post. As a girl or a young woman especially, these bodies that you see and that make you feel bad about your own, they are not real either. They are filtered, Photoshopped, Facetuned, if not also the result of hidden cosmetic surgery and ‘no-makeup’ makeup.

The information that you read about is incomplete because informative media present on the platforms feel such pressure from the instant quality of social media that they do not verify or investigate further: you are only reading headlines. The impression – sometimes causing depression and anxiety - that everything is falling apart, that the world is only a horrible place probably comes from the fact that the news on your feed only shares about the worst parts because it is the most stimulating, what will attract the most. And the truth is that we are not made to hear such an amount of

bad news on a daily basis, and we cannot save every single part of the world where something bad is happening but we still feel like we have to because we are incompletely and falsely connected to every single part of the world. And as cute and popular as puppies and kittens are on social media, they do not really manage to make up for all this negative news. You do not have to immediately answer a message if you just opened it, you do not have to comment and like all of your friends’ pictures. You do not have to download the last app because that is where people are going. You do not have to buy this thing everyone is praising. A tweet from a random person is not information, or a truth to base your opinion on. Most people tweeting have no authority on the subjects they tackle…

Now, I often find myself trying to desperately find positive aspects to social media and my article will probably push you to do the same. “Even though one does not have authority on a subject they have the right to express themselves! Would I have been aware so soon about China’s enslavement and attempt to acculturate the Uyghurs without social media? Would the sexual predator Harvey Weinstein’s downfall have happened without social media?” I can acknowledge that social media seems to be a great tool for communication and mobilisation. However, is social media not only a platform among other older ones? I am left wondering: “do the #FreeUyghurs or the #MeToo movements could really not have happened without social media? Did they not just happen there because we made it our new, exciting, and regular other reality? Are movements and revolutions really so intrinsic to social media? I do not think so. Do I really express myself hidden behind a screen?” In fact, “do I really express myself among people who are blinded by the results of the algorithms and are not really open to polite, composed dialogue and debate but only want to scream? Do I really express myself when most of the ‘information’ I consume is incomplete if not fast and false? Can I not still go express myself in real life: write something, open a debate with my friends?” If the few good aspects I can find about social media are unveiled to be myths, debunkable, questionable at least, is it then enough to simply adjust my use of these platforms? Am I not desperately trying to find good aspects to it only because I am addicted to a few of these apps? Perhaps these ‘good aspects’ are in the end just as false - ‘un-real’ – as the rest of what comes from social media.

I guess one can choose to only listen to the free man from outside the cave and adjust their lives inside such a cave; turn off the fire, destroy the wall and the chains…One can choose to deny notifications and delete the apps from their phone, to only go on their laptop, when they really want to. One can downsize the number of accounts they follow, the friends they have on Facebook. But the fact remains that we are being manipulated, our freedom of thought and critical thinking obstructed and that most of what we see on our screens is, in many different ways, not real. I personally started by adjusting my use of social media because I was convinced that I was truly enjoying aspects of it. I listened to the man from outside the cave. But the reality is that when you get rid of all the toxic aspects of social media, there is not much left; the cave is quite empty and dull. It only made me realise all the time I lost on my phone, on a completely constructed and false reality. And I now just want to live outside the cave.

Composed by

Déborah Lazreug, Undergraduate of English Literature and History of Art at the University of Aberdeen