1. The creators of the British television show Black Mirror, use the show to make many criticisms of today’s society, our intensifying relationship with technology and how our own media is affecting us. Now for those of you who have seen any episode of Black Mirror, you should know that it’s obviously an over exaggeration of what our society could become, but, let’s face it, it’s not all that far off from the truth. In fact certain 'parts' of our society are (in a sense) already there.
2. In the episode, '15 Million Merit Points,' it criticizes people spending money on virtual objects that do not exists, or have no real value to them. You see, in this weird vision of the future, everyone has a virtual avatar, that if you spend your merit points (this futures equilvalent to money) on, you can change/customize your avatar. Which is pointless, as your merit points could be spent on food or something much useful to you than a virtual object with no real life value (this also does not allow your avatar to do anything special, so it's even more pointless). There is a certain nameless cyclist, who is only focused upon a few times in the episode, and each time he can be seen spending merit points almost constantly on his avatar. You could compare this to those individuals who think it's worth it to spend 15$ or 20$ on a golden gun camo (If I paid that amount of money on a virtual gun, I would expect it to be significantly better, not just a golden palette swap). Or better yet, all of those 'free' mobile games, where essentially everything takes forever to do, unless you give them some money because you keep getting wrecked by that one guy with a bigger wallet than you. Obviously, all that money you just spent means absolutely nothing in the real world, and you really don't get anything viable to show for it, other than an empty wallet, and considering the growing popularity of these mobile games, people haven't learned a thing.
In the episode , 'Be Right Back,' it makes criticisms about how technology can influence our real life human relationships, by causing us to grow distant from one another. This is seen when Martha, after losing her husband in a sudden and tragic accident, becomes obsessed with an A.I. that is supposed to mimic her dead husband, which causes her to grow distant from her real life family and friends. Now of course we don't have A.I.'s that can mimic your dead loved ones (yet), but it does drive home an interesting real life point that technology can negatively affect our human relationships. A good old example of this would have to be the cell phone(well smart phone)/social media, I am pretty sure we all know at least one person who is on their cell phone 24/7, and who updates their social statuses more than they ever actually speak to real people. And often times, you will find that when you do try to speak with these individuals, they spend most of the time with their faces in their smart phones (Please note, that I am not against smart phones), and or, don't seen to know how to physically speak to other people. Then you have those people on Facebook with like 300+ friends, who do not even know most of them, and who probably have little to no human interaction on a daily basis. Ultimately, these people tend to grow distant from others in a physical sense.
3. I agree with both the above points/criticisms about our society. For starters, as we spend more time online, we are more likely to spend money on virtual items with little to no real world value, and this market has only been growing, as companies realize there plenty of suckers out their willing to pay for this kind of stuff. Secondly, as awesome as technology is, allowing to stay connected and share every. last. detail. about our lives to essentially everyone, it has also created a rather interesting problem. Some people become so absorbed into their electronics/digital lives, that they start to distance themselves from real people, I mean it says something about our society when "loneliness" has become such a huge problem that it's some persons job to actually cuddle with other people...
4. Oh yes, team fortress 2's hats, and no, those hats are not for free, they cost real money, and they are pretty much useless virtual junk (albeit, useless virtual junk that has generated for Valve a crap-ton of money)
Next is a rather interesting video that makes some interesting points on how technology, especially social media, has effected/is effecting us as a species in a social sense.
