Black Mirror episode:
To put the episode of black mirror we watched in class into a word: frightening. The reason I felt that this episode was so frightening was due to the fact that it seems all too possible for the future. We already are photographing and videotaping so much of our lives because of iPhones and GoPros and all these other camera and methods of recording and posting things on social media. Our lives are so publicized and its possible that one day every part of our life is recorded. Snapchat just came out with ‘spectacles’ and it records what you see—essentially what happens in black mirror. Without the benefit of choosing what we do and do not want to remember our lives would be drastically different- and black mirror shows us that that is not for the better. If we let our world get to that level of crazy just because that business is monopolizing everything than we are doomed. I watched a 60 minutes clip (I highly recommend it) about “brain hacking” , it featured a guy who quit working at google because he noticed that apps and web browsers are coding social media and websites to function so that we will stay on the app/website for longer- they do this by using notifications that trigger our dopamine. Very interesting stuff– basically said that this is a race to the bottom of our brain stem and it’s making us our most primitive selves: depressed, insecure, and anxious.