Technology prevails in today’s society. As millennials, we have witnessed the explosive development of technology and how its tentacles reach into literally every aspect of our lives. Though these advanced techniques have brought tremendous positive effects to the society, the unintended consequences lurking behind the merry façade are just as significant. In the TV series Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker explores the potential side effects technology.

Media and Internet, two of the most prominent products of technology, have been shaping and effecting the beliefs of people today on an enormous scale. In “Nosedive”, the first episode of Season Three of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker depicts a fictitious world in which every individual was rated by others by their performance in daily life. The combined rating score decides the individual’s social status. Our protagonist, a woman desperately seeking to boost her rating score, is forced to do many “kind” and “suitable” deeds according to social morality criteria. In the end, she cannot stand this superficial rating system and commits “vicious” acts, screwing up her rating score and is put behind bars. By taking the current social network to an exaggerated state, Brooker presents the terrifying, blood-freezing prediction, showing us what may happen if today’s social networks such as Facebook reach their peak. This particular theme is also touched upon in “The National Anthem”, “The Waldo Moment” and “Hated in the Nation”, all episodes in Black Mirror.

Charlie Brooker also explores how the technology of virtual reality, might cause possible problems in the future. In “San Junipero”, Brooker prophesized a world in which people’s minds can be extracted and kept alive after they are physically dead. The dead “spirits” will go on living in a virtual town named “San Junipero” as their younger selves. A lot of ethical controversies and tumults are involved and discussed in this episode. In another episode “Playtest”, the boundary between reality and virtual reality melts into a questionable blur as the protagonist is destroyed mentally in a so-called VR game. If we human beings conceive reality by neurotic perception, which is achievable by technology through artificial stimulation to human brains, then could virtual reality be equated to reality since they trigger same sensations?

The name Black Mirror for the show, as Charlie Brooker explained himself, “is the one you'll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone”. Brooker himself had been a “victim” of coming-of-age technology. He would spend all day watching meaningless TV shows and engage himself in nonstop video games, feeling directionless yet unwilling to cut the habit. As an addict, Brooker clearly understood how technology has the potential to manipulates people, and to how easy a degree can this feat be accomplished. Therefore, he decided to write this series of stories that aims to lead people to contemplate on these though-provoking problems that technology causes or will cause one day. As terrifying and unnerving as these episodes may seem, they do present a likely future if the society keeps driving down the road without taking a stop to think about the problems.

A somewhat Netflix-addict myself, finishing the last episode of Black Mirror on my computer at 3 a.m., I saw my own reflection on the blacked computer screen as I pressed down the power button to turn off the computer. This was when the realization hit me ---- maybe the ultimate sarcasm of the show lies here: we are watching a show that criticized “black mirror” while staring into one of these ---- a perfect, absurd paradox.