Black Mirror-Striking Vipers

For my last post, and since VR was really recent, I decided to share an episode I was thinking about from Black Mirror on Netflix. Personally, I think this show does a really good job on highlighting the dangers and insanity that technology could lead humanity towards. There are a lot of sick realities that human beings have the ability to fall towards and whether or not this is just entertainment to us, they exist. VR is one tech that gets highlighted with some ugly realities. 

I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it, so the point is that in this episode, two men forget who they really are while in a VR Street Fighter-styled game. You can watch the episode on Netflix but I put in the trailer:

They take a path that they never would have taken in their own reality, simply because of the advanced capabilities of this VR. It confuses their real selves, ruins relationships and causes conflicts that affect their actual human lives so irreversibly. I could never tell if the point was that human beings have weaknesses or if technology has weaknesses, but maybe both? The men clearly misuse the purpose of the game, but the game was always for self-enjoyment in the first place... I think the episode points to the recurring theme that technology is abused by humanity. I think that humans have been taking their pleasure/entertainment seeking desires too far and Black Mirror only highlights some of those in their episodes. 

For years, humans have had a focus within their civilization for entertainment and pleasure. It only gets easier with technology, a source that supports sharing of all knowledge, images and people. It can take identity out of sex, commitment out of relationships and confuse the already lost mind.

 I suppose I've been the naysayer for technology for a while. I never had a phone growing up and not surprisingly didn't have friends past elementary school. I never got invited anywhere, except birthday parties where the invitations were made out in the mail to be formal. I grew up watching people stare at phone screens on school buses and unable to play Kahoot in classes that were beginning to use technology as a tool. I don't feel bad, honestly. Now that I have a phone and use it for music and texting a total of 3 people, I realize how easy it becomes to depend on technology. I never would have witnessed the absolute horror of a society that relies so heavily on something so material. To grow up friendless simply because communication became so ironically limited. In elementary school, invites happened on the bus or on the playground where two kids realize they enjoy hanging out. Now, it seems to happen on a screen when two friends get bored and need immediate company. 

Here's a secret: I don't know why I am a Digital Studies major because a lot of the capabilities of the digital world scare me. Maybe I thought I could be at the helm of the ship and master it...making sure I have a certified opinion in it so that one day if the world needed a voice of reason, I could be that. I don't disagree with the good thing technology can do, but it is technology used without limits that haunts me. 

So watch the Black Mirror once for humanity's sake, twice for technology's sake and a third for mine. 

J!ll!an