Black Mirror

Although I find the episode frustrating to watch, the most interesting of the first season’s episodes of Black Mirror is the third episode entitled “The Entire History of You.” While the first episode is just something that seems too ridiculous to happen and the second episode relies on a dystopian future, “The Entire History of You” captures the potential of how we use technology. The episode raises compelling questions about how humans and technology interact. The characters in this episode have a chip implanted in their heads that records their memories – a piece of technology inside of their bodies, something that seems to have become domesticated. The humans in this episode are part computer - their memories, and by extension, their past, is completely digitized.

One interesting scene took place in the airport when security asked to see the main character’s most recent memories. In a world like this, how much privacy do citizens have? It seems like they really have none, especially when government officials are allowed access to a visual account of one’s memories. However, I thought about how our current world already digitizes our lives; Facebook prompts its users to re-share posts on the post’s “anniversary.” We have access to all past posts on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram – essentially every social media platform except for Snapchat. Our social media and technology map us throughout history, so the memory chip the characters use is just an extension of that. The technology in this episode raised some concerns for me but we are already using technology very similar to it.

This brought me back to another idea I had about the episode. It seemed like all of the characters were very comfortable with the technology, freely sharing memories with others and singling out the woman who removed her memory chip. In our current world, a viewer is likely to react to this episode by saying that we would never use technology like that, but people have fears about every new form of technology and society eventually embraces it, then becoming domesticated and something we cannot imagine our lives without, and this episode especially exemplified that.