After watching the first episode of "Black Mirror" in class, I was a little skeptical about just how dark things needed to get before a point was made about our addiction to screens as a culture. However, after watching the next two episodes on my own, I really started appreciating the different stories told in each episode. Each episode, telling an entirely different story (in a different reality, with a different cast), made its own statement on our growing dependence on technology as a society, and presented a possible outcome of its unending evolution.
It was a smart choice for the show to start off in a present-day scenario in Episode 1, "The National Anthem". Kicking off the show with a message about our current tendency to become absorbed by the technologies around us, "Black Mirror" gives us two following predictions of how that addiction will someday evolve once our technologies have advanced. For me, the scariest prediction was in Episode 3, "The Entire History Of You", through which we're shown a reality in which our every memory is stored as a tangible recording to be played back and reflected on at any time.
I thought this concept played off of many issues that we struggle with as a society of digital media consumers today: privacy, digital permanence, trust, etc. Despite the many problems this technology would amplify, like how much the government would legally be able to access, how privacy laws would work around our memories (something once existing in our minds alone, now tangible), and how we would act differently knowing our every memory was being recorded, the scariest part of this for me was the issue of trust (especially within a relationship) that this technology would amplify.
When we're suspicious of another person's unfaithfulness, betrayal, or general wrongdoing, our first instinct might be to look through their phone. After all, everything but our memories are stored on there as tangible proof: photos, text messages, our activity on different social media networks, and more. That's what made Episode 3, "The Entire History Of You" so scary to watch- it was a very real idea. We watched what "show me your phone" might look like in the not-so-distant future: the suspicion, the snooping, the investigation, the analyzation, etc. Except, in this not-so-distant future, we would see quite literally everything. Our memories can't be twisted by how we've worded something in writing, how something appears in the context of a social network, or the absence of human contact from behind a screen. This episode suggests that we might not be very far from eliminating all that uncertainty, and having the entire history of ourselves on hand at all times, ready for playback, through the good and the bad.
I agree that episode three really was scary to watch as it was so realistic to a very close future. As I mentioned in class we had to read the Feed for Digital Media where a computer chip was implanted in your brain rather than having it at your finger tips. Watching this episode was oddly familiar and it is scary how much it could be seen as something happening in the future. It is tricky though as you state when talking about the issues the couple in the episode had, how to set up boundaries and balance with that kind of technology.
ReplyDeleteI also contemplate how retaining memories and being able to share them would affect us. On one hand, the argument could be made that we will live more honestly when we know that our memories are subject to others, our actions and words cemented in one's mind. But conversely, episode 3 showed how people may behave in response to the ability to store memories at that capacity. We watched a man's life fall apart overnight, a situation that would have very likely had a much different outcome had he not been able to see his wife's memories. Privacy is definitely something to keep in mind as our society makes technological advances.
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