It’s a question that has always piqued our curiosity, and featured in many drawing-room discussions — does our social media study our online behaviour? How much of us and the content we watch, listen to, and upload does Instagram store as cold, hard data? What is the significance of this information, and how is it being used?

A brand new Netflix original documentary attempts to answer most of those questions, in the most engaging way possible. That’s exactly what Netflix’s new release, The Social Dilemma, is all about.

“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product” is an adage we’ve become familiar with, especially in the aftermath of the notorious Cambridge Analytica data breach controversy, involving Facebook. For perhaps the first time, in a mainstream documentary, former executives of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram blow the lid off these companies’ worst kept secret.

The Social Dilemma is a comprehensive collection of these interviews complemented by provocative, compelling visual narratives and a fictitious story arc all aimed at sending one message home — that social media users are merely lab rats in an elaborate data-mining exercise aimed at benefiting corporate bigwigs.

The documentary features interviews with Tristan Harris who worked as a design ethicist at Google, former Facebook executives Tim Kendall and Justin Rosenstein, former VP of Engineering at Twitter Alex Roetter, former early team member at Instagram Bailey Richardson and former Twitter executive Jeff Seibert, among other Silicon Valley regulars.

The Silicon Valley ensemble goes to admirable lengths in explaining how social media giants capitalize on a user’s browsing patterns to manipulate engagement, and subsequently utilize these insights in order to get big corporate names to advertise on these platforms. The Social Dilemma’s narrative is compelling, convincing and jaw-dropping, as the film ably demonstrates how big social media companies have had a starring role to play in a post-truth world, by feeding users content that they believe would satisfy the interest of advertisers.

The film contains scenarios where continued social media usage and subsequent addiction could go so far as to influence voting patterns on the basis of lies and manipulation. One of the cast members explains how algorithms in most social networking sites even track the time a user spends on a post in order to engage in targeted advertising and more content generation, both of which remain agnostic of fact or reality.

One of the most striking features of The Social Dilemma, as is the case with most Netflix documentaries, is the style and smartness of the narrative.

Netflix manages to break away from the documentary narrative and cut to an almost humorous yet compelling story arc where Vincent Kartheiser (of Mad Men fame), plays the role of an AI within a Facebook-like social networking site scheming with two doppelgangers to keep a teenaged social media user addicted to his smart-phone. On the outside of the AI’s world, The Social Dilemma narrates the fictitious tale of a teenager, Ben (Skyler Gisondo) who is in the initial stages of social media addiction.

This commendable use of fictitious story arcs in order to make a storyboard off the experts’ sound-bites through the documentary ensures that The Social Dilemma stays interesting, engaging and entertaining. There is one particularly telling scene where the AI (Vincent Kartheiser) is at a loss for strategy when Ben decides not to use his phone for a few days.

With some nifty special effects and an admirable plot, The Social Dilemma comes across as the kind of documentary film each of us needs to watch and pay attention to given the connected world we live in. It is relatable and insightful, especially when the men and women who worked in these social media empires bare all their deepest secrets.

Watch The Social Dilemma as a cautionary tale to be aware of what you sign up for when you spend too much time on social media. Remember to stay for the end credits when the Silicon Valley regulars give us tips and tricks to get rid of the real-world social dilemma we’re faced with.