Acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield (“The Queen of Versailles”) is drawn time and again to overlapping and powerful themes like addiction, wealth, consumerism and celebrity culture. Now, with her first doc series “Social Studies” — a fascinating 5-part exploration of the tight grip that social media has over Generation Z — Lauren unpacks these interrelated themes in the context of the online social interactions that have taken over young people’s lives.

Lauren joins Ken on the pod to discuss how the end of the covid pandemic inadvertently created an opportune moment to begin following a diverse group of young people in Los Angeles and their lives on social media just as they were preparing to return to in-person classes for the first time in a year-and-a-half. Combining observational footage, interviews with young people and their parents, roundtable discussions, and clips of her participants’ social media feeds, “Social Studies” delves into the pitfalls, as well as the positive aspects, of social media. When we reach the end of the series, the film’s participants confront an inescapable dilemma: should I or shouldn’t I delete my social media apps?

“Social Studies” is available for streaming on Hulu. The series is nominated for the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.

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