Black Mirror’s “Nosedive” Was About Social Isolation — of a Different Kind
“Nosedive” was the first episode of the third season of the dark science-fiction anthology series Black Mirror and it was released on October 21, 2016. This particular episode, like most of the rest of the series, is social satire in the context of modern technology. Let me explain how.
The growing pessimism associated with modern technology and the fears that derive from it are deeply rooted in society’s lack of self-awareness, which is a proposition I’ll strive to explore here.
In his interview with Der Spiegel, German philosopher Martin Heidegger makes the statement that all our “relationships have become merely technical ones” (1966).
This sentiment is embedded in the fictional, dystopic universe of “Nosedive”, where the characters forge interpersonal relationships, evaluate socioeconomic structures, and navigate the course of their daily lives by the same attributes that apply to social media interaction. Every individual rates others on a one-to-five scale incessantly, which creates a fluctuating rating system that defines the position of everyone in the social strata of their world. Those with higher ratings of 4.0 and above enjoy the highest privileges of…
