On Black Mirror

For this weeks blog post I've decided to take another look at Netflix's original SF series Black Mirror. A show that focuses on the effect that future technology can affect you physically, or mentally. The show is made of approx. one hour installments with separate plot lines for every episode. The writers of the show use these differing plots to look at different types of technology and how each type would have its own distinct effect on society.


Black Mirror is first and foremost a show about the darkness of future technology. The show looks at how technology is going to modify our society as a whole and effect everything about our lives down to basic social interactions. Episodes like "Nosedive" look into how the future tech-namely tech that isn't extremely far fetched like optical implants (similar to Google's "Google Glass") and rating the people around you (similar to Facebook's Instagram). These technologies would seem crude from the perspective of the show's characters, but from our perspective it is just a possible progression of technology. What Black Mirror does with this new technology is quite unexpected though. Instead of building up a world where the new technology is used to make the world seem Utopian the writers of Black Mirror decided to make a world where the technology is an antagonist seemed to be bad for the characters in the show. As with many episodes of Black Mirror the tech seems to be great in the beginning, but as the show progresses you can see the tech taking a greater toll on the character and eventually forcing them to some sort of a breaking point often leading to the characters either rejecting the technology and removing it from their lives (see "Nosedive" or "The Entire History of you"), or even trying to end their own lives to leave the system (see "Fifteen Million Merits" or "Be Right Back"). Ultimately the technology that our society seems to crave is not always going to be a benefit to everyone, the show argues. The show is intended to make the audience think about their own lives and how they are, perhaps, better off enjoying their life how it is thank looking for a greener pasture in the world of technology.

Though I myself am quite a fan of technology advances and think that new technology is fantastic for our society it is very refreshing to see a show that is looking into the future and considering possibilities that most people overlook. More often that not people are enticed by the worlds of Star Trek and Doctor Who and thus are vying for the future technology, but as Black Mirror shows it may be preferable for us to take it slow and simply enjoy the world we live in. Even if our lives may not be the easiest and we can't always rely on our technology to saves us, there is something quite nice about being human and having the ups and downs. As Hugo Weaving said in The Matrix "I believe that as a species human beings define their reality through misery and suffering," and that is why I believe it is so hard for these future societies to focus on their own perfect worlds.