The Black Mirror episode, The Entire History of You, displays everyone having access to a memory implant that is placed behind the ear and it records everything they do, see and hear. This means that you can play back anything at any time from your memory. The episode starts off with Liam leaving a job interview, which he feels he did poorly, and catches a flight to meet his wife at a dinner party. When he arrives, he sees his wife talking to a man and is relaxed and when she notices Liam she tenses up and acts differently. He is very suspicious of his wife’s behavior and constantly plays that clip over and over and analyzes every little detail. It then goes on that she had dated this man and he begins to get even more suspicious and ends up going to his house and demanding to have the sex memory of them two deleted. He then discovers that she cheated on him 18 months prior to that and made his wife show him the recording of that encounter. Heartbroken, he plays back happy memories of him, his wife, and his child.. that might not even be his. The final scene ends with him cutting out the device, removing all the memories and recordings with it. Now even though this seems like a great thing to have such as all your memories stored, never forgotten, and being played back… it has its consequences.
This device was an invasion of privacy where anybody can see even the littlest of moments in your life. It keeps you on your toes and it has you over analyze everything and are constantly reminded by horrible times and moments, which without the device, that feeling and memory would get better over time. It also intentionally distorts memory and it has you not living in the present reality. The brain takes out and puts back in memory and each time a memory gets pulled out it gets put back in differently. Your memory erases, suppresses, and forgets things to hold more space to create and enjoy more moments and information. You won’t be able to move on from moments or events if it is constantly there to see as this device did in the episode.
Along with memory and the mind, as a class we read the article “Is google making us stupid?” and my answer is that I don’t think it is making us stupid but I do think that it is slowly changing how we think and and how we do things on a daily basis. “A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after.” This article talks about how we went from physically going to get information and it taking hours to clicking a hyperlink and receiving that information within seconds and doing multiple things at once. This has an impact on the brain because now our brains are adjusting to this new way of receiving information. Our brain is now receiving information at a faster pace and is not going into too much depth and it is because of the fast world of technology that we are currently living in. When going through social media such as instagram, snapchat, twitter, how long do you sit there looking at a post.. not very long right? We take a quick glance and move on to the next post or quickly switch to another platform. This also contributes to how technology and google has slowly changed and altered our mind process. Do you think your mind has changed ?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200831112345.htm
SOCIAL MEDIA & SOCIETY 
This was a great blog. When explaining the implant device, I could relate it to the device of the phones we carry everyday. We don’t realize how much we are consuming as a norm daily and seeing a post after post for instant satisfaction. I believe my mind continues to evolve everyday based off my beliefs. I am glad I don’t have the addicting hold on my social media platforms and am able to ween myself away from being on it for long periods of time. Staying busy with my passions help with that to be honest.
LikeLike
Great post Syd. I think you touch on an important part of the memory implant in the Black Mirror episode. With the way our memory works the brain suppress and forget things that it does not see as important or something that was a bad memory that you do not ever want to think about again. With the device you are able to relive the trauma and things that you do not really want to see again and this could end up having a very negative effect. I think our minds have slightly changed because we are so use to everything be just one click away and being super easy to change from one thing to the next. This is part to do with google where you can find just about anything you want and the smartphone where everything is all in the same place whether is google, social media, games, and just talking with other people and everything gets saved or you can just look it up again.
LikeLike
Hey Syd, I really enjoyed reading your post! I found your interpretation of the Black Mirror episode accurate and closely associated with mine. The grain technology at the beginning seems so promising but consumes and overwhelms Liam overtime. His ability to critically review his memories pushes him over the limit as he discovers his wife’s scandal with another man (Jonas). I believe after removing the grain devise Liam found a sense of closure. He was constantly investigating his own thoughts, obsessing over every little detail. The technology did offer several advantages but became too much for Liam to handle.
I also agree with your statement in regards to technologies ability to alter our mind process. We find ourselves in a society full of alerts and updates, constantly straining our attention. I do believe our minds are changing at a rapid rate. Platforms such as zoom have allowed Universities all a crossed the country to continue online learning without in-person sessions. Without these technological advancements I may not be writing this review! I hope we can find a happy medium with our consumption of technology and continue to adjust to our new society.
LikeLike
I really liked reading this post! I thought your summarization of the episode was spot on. It’s crazy to this that this technology could be acquired in the near future. At first you think that this technology would be good to have and could help you in your day to day life, but really it just complicates things. Obviously Liam realizes this and takes his devise out and you can see this type of satisfaction of being free that I think a lot of people could relate to in that situation. I also believe that life would be like that as well if people had these device in them and it would overall destroy people. While looking at the overall concept of this episode that it’s trying to display is that with time technology will change us all as whole and depending on how we use this it could be bad or good.
LikeLike