This essay is written on an episode of Black Mirror that deals with a new memory storage device. This device can help you relive any moment of your life and I wanted to demonstrate both the positive and negative effects it may have. Jasmin Skoupas
THE GRAIN: REVOLUTIONARY OR DESTRUCTIVE The Entire History of You is an episode of Black Mirror that pushes the idea that physical memory storage is a thing of the past and technology can now help you recall and capture memories (Armstrong, Welsh 2011). The implant that helps one do this is called the grain. The grain controls how your memories can be stored, but in this case it can also control your life. This is something that could become a reality in the near future, so grab some popcorn and prepare by watching this episode of Black Mirror and contemplating how necessary this implant is. With the grain it is easy to review every mistake made and every face seen, but is that always a good thing? In the future, every move you make or anything you see is stored in this new technology called the grain. The grain is more or less a camera that has been implanted into your brain that captures videos and recordings at any time and stores them as memories. In this world, one would never have to think hard about what had to be studied for on a test, or remember a face but not a name, as it’s easy to go back and relive those memories. It’s possible to get the grain removed if you’d like to live in the past and store memories on your own, but the grain is so advanced that some people believe it to be a necessity and the idea of removing it is laughable. The grain has become the main memory retention device in so many people’s daily lives, how could it go wrong? This episode of Black Mirror revolves around Liam slowly becoming obsessed over the friendliness of his wife Fi with an old friend Jonas (Sims 2013). Whether it be laughing a little too hard at his jokes, or acting more tense around her husband, it is easy to see that something is happening between the two and when viewing this episode, it is known that there will be some kind of falling out. This is mostly what the episode is based upon; Liam’s long journey using his grain footage to prove that there is in fact something between Fi and Jonas and it is painstaking to watch. Liam ends up being right, but this leads to him driving his wife and daughter out of his life. Without the grain, Liam would still have his family and would not have driven himself to sheer madness over a little flirting. The final moments of this episode are Liam staring at himself in a mirror in his now empty house removing the thing that has caused him the most damage, the grain. The portrayal of the grain was done fantastically in this episode. We are not only shown how you can use it recreationally, but how it’s used in public, such as in an airport or after a job interview. This new memory implant is very easy to imagine and could easily become a real price of technology in our near future. It’s a surprise to find that other people believe this too. More specifically Tom Gruber of Apple, Regina Dugan of Facebook, and none other than Elon Musk (Kosoff 2017). They all have some belief that memories will be combined with technology in the future. There is a chance memory based technology will positively affect our lives, but nobody’s perfect and whatever embarrassing things one may do will remain in the memories of oneself and of passerby forever. While the grain is a good idea, it is also a harmful one and humanity is not ready for it yet. The Entire History of You had an amazing plot and beautifully illustrated this grain-filled world. This implant may better society in the future… the far future. After all, we already replay our mistakes in our own minds, why should someone else get to do the same thing? REFERENCES Armstrong, Jesse (Writer), & Welsh, Brian (Director). (2011). The entire history of you [Television series episode]. In Brooker, Charlie & Jones, Annabel (Producers), Black Mirror. United Kingdom: Endemol UK Kosoff, Maya (2017, April 25). Apple Predicts Black Mirror Memory Implants Could Soon Be a Reality. Retrieved from: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/apple-exec-predicts-black-mirror-tech-could-soon-be-a-reality/amp Sims, David (2013, November 26). Black Mirror: “The Entire History Of You”. Retrieved from: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/tv.avclub.com/black-mirror-the-entire-history-of-you-1798178824/amp
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