One of the most powerful documentaries of 2026 is Your Attention Please. It’s a film that examines the dark side of technology and social media, and how it has overtaken our lives. But it also tries to answer the question, who is responsible…. who are the culprits and how they should be held accountable. The film by Sara Robin and Jack Lemay take an investigative approach to the dark underbelly of social media and how it has ruined the lives of so many people including causing a higher than normal suicide rate. Not only will you get first hand accounts and whistleblower testimony about how companies like Meta through Facebook and Instagram seek to control and steer our everyday lives, but it also explores the consequences of these billion-dollar companies that seem to be above the law.
One of the great aspects of this film is taking us back to a time before we had a smartphone and what it was like before the internet. It doesn’t attack the internet per se, just how it’s used especially through social media. One of the truly nefarious forces behind this technology is the advertising and subliminal messaging without any guardrails that affect how we think, how we interact, and make us more angry while getting us to buy more things through data driven advertising It asks a lot of big questions such as “are lives truly better with social media?” We take it for granted because we’re on it everyday. We’re on our smartphones everyday…we are always connected to the internet. Today society has short attention spans and as we have seen in recent elections, there doesn’t seem to be a vetting process for the propaganda that can be spilled out on social media. It makes our society angry, It makes us susceptible to lies. But Even more important, it has allowed and in some cases condoned bullying especially of teenagers. But this documentary also explores the laws and safeguards that were put in place 30 years ago about how tech companies could not be prosecuted for what people did using their product. That law still exists, but should it be updated since the internet isn’t like some amateurish fad and people have become more sophisticated with the use of propaganda and the spread of hate speech and bullying online through social media.
The best part of this documentary is it forces us to reconcile our own daily lives and how we use technology. Plus it explores how detrimental it can be to our humanity. Throughout history we have learned that companies are too big to fail and shouldn’t be held accountable because they’re too big to fail…should that be the case? It poses the question of whether Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta and the inventor of Facebook has now become a villain in society by not putting forth protections on his billion dollar product. There’s a lot of Great, but sad stories of parents who have had to deal with teenage suicide, but also how small groups are starting to reclaim their humanity by going to digital free zones. It’s getting back to a time where we didn’t have technology to converse, we did that in person and we had conversations. But great documentaries make us ask hard questions and re-examine our own lives. That’s why I say this is one of the most powerful documentaries that you’re going to watch. Everybody needs to watch it and then ask, will you still be on social media or how will you use it if you are. The testimonies are powerful, they’re emotional and they make us look at the ugliness in our society, but also point the way of how we can reclaim our humanity. I very much enjoyed this film and there certainly a lot more to the conversation that can be done through a sequel or even a documentary series, but this film is the start. I praise the filmmakers for tackling such a difficult subject and making us ask those hard questions especially if you’re a parent allowing your children to be on social media or have a smartphone. Watch this film, you won’t be disappointed. It’s a life-changing documentary!
