A Question on Technology's Impact on Society through Nosedive

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Recently I watched two episodes from the Netflix sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror: Nosedive and Shut Up and Dance. I felt very anxious as I watched the former and frozen-out-of-fear after watching the latter.

For now, I will limit myself to Nosedive only: it portrays a future world where people get points for their personality on a scale of 1-5. One being the lowest and five being the highest. Before I delve into the nitty gritties of design and ethics of such a system, I would like to point out that no one in this episode seems to have a full 5/5 rating--which reflects how no human is perfect. Leaving aside the philosophy of human perfection, the episode gives the viewer a glimpse into the possibilities of technology to rate humans in real time based on their social behavior and attitude. While this could be beneficial to spot* and rule out “asocial” elements from the society on a surface level and in a limited capacity, it can deeply harm the mental health, quality of social interactions, the authenticity of humaneness and even the economic benefits people are able to avail.

Going back to my use of the word ‘spot’, I mean if someone has poor social rating based on something “wrong” (objectively wrong like violence) they might have done in their past, for example a murder. Maybe knowing this, we could somewhat keep our communities relatively-safer from that person by safeguarding and futureproofing ourselves i.e. staying away from them, noticing their actions, making sure they are not posing a social threat, etc., but by doing this we might be demonizing people who have made mistakes (without going deeper into the rights and wrongs on what and who poses social threats). Also, by using a humans’ rating system we might become unforgiving, we could start judging and labeling people by their actions or past mistakes which would impact the relationships we as humans build on feelings of mutual trust, safety and kindness. 

The episode shows Lacie's encounter with the female truck driver, Susan with a rating of 1.4 who offers Lacie a hitch. But Lacie denies that initially despite being in grave need because she becomes disparaging and prejudiced due to Susan’s rating. It is a perfect example of judging a book by its cover. In application this could deepen the socioeconomic gaps in human society as people with higher rating-range would alienate and look down upon those with lower ratings. An example of this is when Lacie’s colleagues boycott one of her colleagues and rate him lowly so that he can lose access to entering the building, which he eventually does. Later, when Lacie gets in trouble with the airport security, she is also prevented from boarding the flight. It goes to the point where she is unable to get a hitchhike, rent a good car or even join her friend’s wedding. In her case, we see that despite having her own money, because of her social rating she is restricted from accessing resources that seem to be reserved for people from a higher socioeconomic background and rating. She becomes a social outcast merely because of her virtual rating.

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A technology like this will push people to perpetually strive for a high social rating, which will put performance pressure on everyone to keep pleasing others. We see many examples of this throughout the show where Lacie suppresses her emotions, tips servers/drivers just to please them, tries to be extra nice to people, offers to give a five in exchange for a five, etc. Imagine having to live life like an eternal theatrical performance with no freedom to be oneself, to be authentic, to be human.

I felt anxious and pitiful towards all the characters as I watched this episode. In my opinion, a technology like this seems to have more power to harm society than do any good to it. Lastly, as we see the design of her phone and other gadgets, they are continually chiming–a good example of attention grabbing design that keeps the user engaged and addicted. With having to focus on putting up a social performance all the time, we notice her hands being subconsciously trained to swipe across her screen upon seeing anyone. Thus, in the end when she is in the jail cell, she tries to rate her fellow inmate upon being furious on him, only to realize she can not anymore. Perhaps, it was in that moment that we see her fully express her innate feelings without any inhibitions or fear of retaliation. 

The last scene marks her liberation not only from the social rating system technology but also her eye implants. Nosedive leaves us thinking about the impact of technology on society–what would we be if there were no social media or the pressure to “keep up” with society in a way that pleases and benefits the privileged, fuels Capitalism and places absolute power in the hands of technology?