Mehdi Hoffman
There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.
Loui Blair
It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
Stephanie
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Yazmin
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
greatdeceivah
In this documentary, Carnegie Melon professor Luis Von Ahn tells a story about how his younger software users won't read anything longer than one line of text.Judging from the moronic reviews made here on this great documentary, we must assume that the reviewers are young and feel quite insulted because the basic premise of this documentary is, that the new generation of internet-addicted youth are basically sheep being led by corporations like google and fakebook to give up their privacy in exchange for socializing online. Obviously this premise goes over the head of attention deficient morons who can barely read a sentence or two and claim in the reviews that there are no teenage women interviewed (i guess she missed the entire segment about the black teen who basically prostituted herself in order to get her cellphone back) or the genius reviewer who talks about the kid who is addicted to gaming, getting thrown out of "Harvard". Hmm.. Harvard is in Massachussets, USA, and the game addict is in England.. Harvard, Oxford, USA, England.. same thing, right? LOLThis documentary, through its many interviews with experts and net addicts, shows clearly how transnational corporations big and small spend millions to manipulate and keep young people addicted to their internet platforms, to commoditize their personal information and sell them products, ranging from games to online porn and apple iphones.It is easy to see how this new generation of net addicted snowflakes live in a fantasy bubble, never having to worry about the reality of working to make ends meet, spending most of their time living in the safe online world, socializing and playing games. It is no wonder this generation of over-protected youths need "safe spaces" and counseling when things don't go their way, or when they hear someone disagreeing with them, as they have never encountered the real hardships most people have to deal with, in the real world. It is as if these kids are living in a game, where everything is a click away, life is easy and parental supervision is non-existent.It is disheartening to think these cynical kids are the future of our world, and i can't help to think that humanity is doomed by its own stupidity.
darren-153-890810
This has been on my list of films to see for ages, I missed it at the cinema and couldn't remember the name of it. Which is quite ironic as you won't really remember anything from it once you've seen it. There's nothing that we don't already know.The only interesting part is when Julian Assange makes a rare appearance.And why are all the teenagers they interview boys? Aren't there any teenage girls in the world?My advice would be don't bother, watch Men, Woman & Children instead.This is just lazy film making
knives123
"{VERY LARGE NUMBER} of {BENIGN EVENTS} occur..." *pause* "every day."What does this statement leave you with? What's the take home message? There isn't. There isn't, except, well - except for the movie going experience, the emotional impact of everything that involves delivering the above information. Except for the low ominous hum the editor imposed upon the above slide to make it all seems so staggeringly scary.And it's just the above. Over and over again. Experts mention something is good but also really bad and get cut off before they get to actually explaining, cut off to scary pictures of blinking server lights in a dark room; presumably, because "the bad" doesn't actually sound as bad as the director's alarmist perspective would have you believe... I wonder how many of these were just not as convinced of the bad as the director expected them to, or simply sounded nuts the more they went on? Or, you know, just antiquated fossils who don't fit anymore into the modern world so blatantly that it's just absurd to let them finish their sentences in a timely manner. So let's leave on a high note - "THE INTERNET IS BAD BE-".Other than experts, the egregious offenses in editing also go against supported or simply active users of these technologies. For example - the interview with Tuboscus. So you interview him. Many blatantly edited out of context sentences later, he meets his fans. One of the fans gets hurt on a spike on a fence, there's some blood, she's lying on the floor. Cut back to Tuboscus saying how much fun it was. Obviously, the editor was telling us this Tuboscus fella from YouTube is killing our kids!!!11 Another scene involved a dropout. Everything in the editing was crying - this young man who dropped out of Oxford because he played too much Halo. Cut to senior game developer saying he loves how kids play games and how many games he sells. The subtext of the editing skims the part where the kid admits he would've just watched TV or read books instead; after all, persecuting those pastimes is SOO last century.The more rationally you observe it the more your realize - any more slant, and this movie would be completely vertical.It's not all wrong. It's not wrong about Google or Google Analytics. Julian Assange himself is spot on right. But this has NOTHING to do with the rest of the film, which carelessly swings from topic to topic as if it's all one evil tumor on an otherwise perfectly productive and balanced race of individuals. The makers of this movie are either wrong or purposefully misleading about pretty much everything else, demonizing anything and everything from Halo to vlogs on YouTube ruining our kids' future.Don't agree with me? Try watching 95% of the scenes that are basically slides with factoids with cheerful music instead of ominously humming servers and you've got a commercial for why the internet is awesome. "How to Spot Propaganda 101". No substance, just movie magic.
Board
This is most likely a film that will split the audience down the middle: One group will say: "Yes, this is really a problem". The other will say "Prfff! What's the big deal? We're just surfing the web. So what?". Although I surf the web a lot, I mostly belong to group one, and this film is definitely propaganda about how much negative impact the internet has had on the world today – not only on entire countries but also on individuals. In some ways it's a documentary version of those disaster movies that show what will happen if all our electricity was cut off, etc. – except here the question is: "What would happen if we suddenly didn't have access to the internet?". Many people would simply have nothing to do, at least according to this film, as they are online almost all of their waking hours. Read a book? No, I can read maximum one line (so a website designer said in this film). Or maybe they would finally find something to do if suddenly there was no internet.The film shows teenagers addicted to pornography, people being kicked out of Harvard for being lazy, people who committed suicide after being bullied online, people who have sex with strangers in order to get their phone back so they can go back online, and companies who do research into how they can make people spend more time on their websites. And, of course, most of these people think there's nothing wrong with what they're doing. For the viewers (or at least me) it was quite easy to spot their problem (for instance: "I play Xbox five hours a day. I was kicked out of Harvard for not handing in my assignments. I don't think those two things are related").It's definitely not a positive film. Although I have seen the destructive effects the internet has had on my life (along with all its positive effects), this is a propagandistic film and as such not a great pleasure to watch no matter how much I might agree with the message. One major reason for this was simply that it was information overload. There were barely any part in the film where there was nobody talking. Fictional films of course have more scenes with action instead of talking than a documentary, but some air in the narrative here would have done some good. But nevertheless, this was a good, well-made and informative film (although I already knew most of the information they presented). The threat they present is definitely very real but not everybody will enjoy facing this threat or enjoy the way it's presented here.By the way: If you have problems controlling your internet use, the program called iNet Protector is the solution. You can set how much online time you can have each day and when (for instance only 1 hour access between 5 to 7 pm Monday and Saturday), and it's of course protected by a password (which you should have someone else do, as it's otherwise pointless). It has improved my life. There's also another programme called PC Auto Shutdown that can switch off your computer automatically when you want it to.