Black Mirror is a Netflix Original series and in my opinion a must-see.
Why? Because it shows our world and social media use from a different angle.
Last weekend I watched the episode “Nosedive” from the second season. In every episode, there is another topic and this time it was the topic social media (and its consequences).
The lead is a woman named Lacie, which is not as popular as she wants to be. And the other problem is that she has to move out from her flat and her dream flat is too expensive. She could join a cost-cutting program but her “rate” is not high enough.
In this world, it is all about rating. You can give people stars from one to five. For example, you had a conversation with a person, afterwards you give that person stars depending how much you liked this conversation. You can also share pictures on your feed which will be also rated from others. People with a rate above 4,5 stars are ruling the world and Lacie has just a 4,2 and needs to get a 4,5 to have access to the program.
From now on she is trying much harder to be liked by others to get more stars. Then, she gets the idea contact an old friend of her, who was not always nice to her but she is a 4,8. This friend calls her and asks her to be her maid of honour and then her unhappy fate takes its course. She wants to use the wedding to get a “boost” on her status because of her speech she was hoping for a lot of five stars from people who are more popular than her.
On the day of the wedding Lacie has a bad discussion with her brother, so that he gives her just one star. Then she crushes into a woman so that she spills her coffee on her shirt. Again, only one star. Also, a bad rate of a taxi driver because she is too late. And at the airport the staff announces that her flight is cancelled. That is the moment when she loses her self-control and her mask cracks. She is making a ruckus and then the airport security punishes her with a temporal bad rate and also that every bad rate will be double damage.
It is getting worse and worse and when her valuation is under three, her friend calls that she doesn’t want her to come anymore because it is too embarrassing. But she still come to the wedding against the will of her friend. She crashes the party, hold her speech and everyone is laughing about her and giving her just a one star-rate. Then she starts yelling and the security took her from the stage and she has to go to the prison. The last scene is about that she realizes how good it feels not to fake her behaviour just to be liked by someone else. She feels free for the first time since a long time ago.
My thoughts
This was just a short recap about what happens in this episode, but in my opinion, it is a must-see because it shows us how our world could be when social media will take over our lives. The people in this episode literally just lived for social media. And it shows us the consequences about to live the fake social-media life all the time. We forget about who we really are and our needs because we want the attention of the people for our own happiness. Because the attention of people makes us addicted. Studies have found that seeking friendship and relationship maintenance motives and gratifications are associated with more frequent social media use and social media addiction.
This “seeking for friendship” was also shown in the episode in a very dramatic way, but it reflects us how unreal our social media life could be if we will just focus on getting attention with likes and comments from our “friends”. And because of the fact that liking and commenting leads to enjoyment and has a positive effect on our mood it has the consequence that we are using social media platforms more and more in a problematic way.
The episode of “Black Mirror” had a huge impact on my thoughts about my social media life. It frightened me in a way because I had the feeling that this is could be out world in the future. Social media is such a great way to communicate and to connect with other people but we should not forget that there is more in life than getting the attention of our people. We are responsible for our happiness and it should be not depending on how many likes you are getting every day.
