This week we had to watch another Black Mirror episode called “The Entire History of You”. This jam packed episode is about a chip that is placed inside your neck that allows you to access your past memories and play them for yourself or for others. With this chip you are also able to zoom in and turn on a lip reading option which I personally thought was very cool. Throughout the episode Liam has to go through a very painful process of investigating the history of his wife and an ignorant character named Jonas. Personally while watching this I really felt sorry for Liam. My family has had to go through the type of behavior that he dealt with in this episode and its one of the hardest things you can possibly have to deal with and get through in your life. It changes you and you can really see how Liam changes throughout the episode as well. At one point in the episode he even says “this isn’t me”.

I feel like if we had this technology in our society today, a lot of people would think twice about the things they do and the decisions they make. I also feel like a lot of the bad decisions that people make wouldn’t even happen because of this technology kind of like keeping us in check, even though I’m pretty sure there is a way to delete memories.The chip would definitely lead to us making more honest and truthful decisions as well. Although I really like the thought of the chip and its a good idea, it would be terrible in our society today. I feel like it would really only benefit the justice system which is a great thing and also crime would be reduced because of this. But it would negatively impact the trust in relationships and ultimately lead to a ton of conflict, but that’s just my personal opinion.

I did in fact attempt not to use my phone as much the last couple of days. Lets just say I didn’t do so well. I think it was at about the hour mark without using it that I was getting anxiety, like who’s texting me and I really wanted to scroll through my own social media. But then I remembered from the zoom meeting we asked about setting a reminder on a phone to just take a deep breath, so I did this and it actually really helps!!! It really relieves yourself of anxiety. I also remembered us talking about appreciating nature and we only have so much time on this beautiful planet and Im not gonna waste so much time on my phone.You only get one life and you shouldn’t spend six hours of it a day on your phone scrolling through social media. So I took a breath and went for a run and then got some food with my brothers after. And in total I went without my phone for about 4 hours or so. Its a good start but I think I can do better. I think we all can do better and enjoy/embrace the world without our phones for a while.

How long can you go without your phone?

Weekly news article: https://theweek.com/good-news/935591/weeks-good-news-september-3-2020

The “challenge of absent presence” is definitely a challenge that many human beings are going through in this day in age. Due to the coronavirus, people went from averaging four hours of social media a day to seven plus hours.There seems to be a mix up between reality and fantasy has led the community with the awareness of social media consumption as a problem or as a solution. The Black Mirror episode, ‘The Entire History of You’, shows a reality where a chip is inserted in humans giving them the capability to film, rewind and zoom in on the memories from their sight. This overwhelmingly relates to today’s age because Elon Musk has already created such chip devices for the similar attributes from the episode. People are really weirded out by the idea of this chip possibly being used regularly in the future. However, this episode has a lot to do with how human beings interact today without the chip, but within the social media apps on their phones. Everything can be saved, deleted and posted which can lead to someone’s uprising in fame or depletion of career and status. Baym states, “Kenneth Gergen (2002) describes us as struggling with the ‘challenge of absent presence,’ worrying that too often we inhabit a ‘floating world’ in which we engage primarily with non-present partners despite the presence of flesh-and-blood people in our physical location. We may be physically present in one space yet mentally and emotionally engaged elsewhere”. It has become a norm to be present to the phone more so than the reality in front of our eyes. Especially with the conditions of the coronavirus, it has led people to continue to reach out to people through the social media platforms than in person meetings. Zoom has become the new party club, school and graduation place for 2020.

Although, it is much “safer” to be away from one another at this unfortunate time, people are missing out on the true importance and value of human love and touch does to the mind, body and soul of being. People are already judgmental in person, but through social media there is a disconnect from spam accounts and humans being cruel to one another on a constant basis. Being able to go back and see the history of one’s social media posts and using it for justification and basis of definition of who that person is has become very alarmingly unfair for some. We see it played out in the episode when Liam suspects that his wife, Ffion, is cheating with Jonas. Liam goes back in his memory and replays his past and drinks himself mad. Although his gut feeling was correct that Ffion had cheated on him, the replays of memories drove him to insanity. He knew that it was time to take out the chip device and be free from the prison of his mind. This can also go for social media and people driving themselves to insanity watching the negative posts or fantasizing a what-if scenario based off posts from social media. It is important to free your mind from the madness and never ending cycle of social media posts. We are stronger than what the government frames us not to be.

Do you believe that we can find a better way to communicate than through social media in the nearby healthy future?

Some social media platforms were created for people to express themselves  and make everything about them which is called subjectivation.The French philosopher Michel Foucault said that social media is the vehicle for identity formation. Social media platforms are a way for you to entertain and create a performance and get provided with feedback for an audience that can be from all over the world. He would say that there are no guards and prisoners when it comes to things being posted on the internet. You were able to post whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. But the way that social media evolved, people use self censorship in order to not get attacked for an opinion that you believe or feel. People behind screens and some that use fake identity are ready to rip people apart for anything they don’t agree with or feel as should not have been said but the internet is a place for people to say what they want with their platforms. This brings up the idea of the cancelled culture that has been seen lately. People are so fixated on a certain kind of image and spokesperson to be popular but once they say something they disagree with or find offensive, they want to cancel them and discredit everything they have done or said to get to where they are. Social media was supposed to be a place where you sculpt who you are by posting thoughts, feelings and opinions but people made it a scary place where people can get bullied and less confident in who they are.  

In “The Story of the Self”, Charles Fernyhough states “When our present-day emotions change, so do our memories”. Just like in the Black Mirror episode the Entire History of You, the main character Liam felt as if something was going on with his wife and her friend once he saw the way that they were interacting with each other during the dinner all of their friends were having. His wife was laughing at all his corny jokes and he became skeptical of what was going on between them and from there he started to ask questions and would even involve the babysitter. He was sure that something had happened between the two so he asked her to play back her memoirs and she tried to delete them. It turns out she cheated on him with the guy and the baby wasn’t even his. He didn’t know how to handle the stress of the knowledge after leaving her and would constantly replay his life with his wife and it got to the point that he had to remove the technology that lets him replay memories. He decided to move on with his life and try to forget the past. Memories can shape who and where we are in life. “There can be no doubt that our current emotions and beliefs shape the memories that we create.” Here is a fun video of how memories work, Enjoy.

What’s your favorite memory?

Hi everybody

this is rayan i’m in the second semester in alfred university i came from saudi arab Born and raised jeddah city to be specific the second biggest city in saudi and I consider myself sport guy i love playing soccer and i play ping pong and i actually have win a trophy in ping pong tournament back home .

Thank-Q

Hello everyone, My name Rakan from Saudi Arabia. Im studying engineering. I love playing soccer and basketball.

Hello, my name is Sydney Saucedo and my major is psychology. I am currently a senior and I play on the softball team here at AU. Im from Southern California so I’m excited to spend my last year in NY. I am also excited to get into this course.

Hi my name is Tyrese Gardner. I am a junior business administration major and I am from Long Island, New York. I am completing this semester online because with all that is going on with the world I decided to take advantage of it and work from home as well so I can make money and get closer to my degree at the same time.

Hi ! My name Jo Clarke! I am a senior majoring in Marketing. I am the CEO of Goldess Collection where I sell lashes and soon Goldess Collection merch clothing (www.goldesscollection.com). I was born and raised in the Bronx. And I am excited to be one semester closer to getting my Bachelor’s degree.

Hi my name is Austin Pierce. I am a senior marketing major from at small town called Forestville, which is near the Fredonia area. I should hopefully be graduating after the end of this semester.

Hi, my name is Kendra and I am happy to be taking this course! I am a transfer student in the Communications major. I am interested in learning and specializing in Graphic and Interaction Design and User Experience. I live locally in New York, but I have lived in several other states and when I was younger, I lived in a couple of other countries. I think the way we communicate has changed so rapidly in the past ten years. I am interested in studying how these changes will impact us as a society. I also wonder how these changes will impact our future interactions. Hope you all have a great semester!