Social Media, Privacy and Rules of Engagement; Rating Culture
Introduction
The “Nosedive” a TV series of Black Mirror demonstrates our changing relation and interaction with technology. This has got intensified by the proliferation of the internet and its by-product social media networking sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter and many others. The obsession with mobile phones and digital platforms has penetrated all forms of life at disproportionate level. It is almost as we have become a slave. This is visible in our everyday life, while eating food, to watch videos in the washroom, walking side the road looking at the mobile phones and playing games. In many ways this is new normal. For example, much of what we are doing in our everyday life is deliberately shown on these social media websites. It is less for our enjoyment, but more for getting credence and legitimacy of what we do, whether likes, comment and share. Once we post a picture on facebook, our habit of going back to see again and again, as to see how many likes and comments give us more happiness and relief that the act of enjoying what we are doing. This we can see in the film where on a coffee table, the character pretends to eat cookies to make a happy face and place it with a coffee mug, then clicks and post on the app. It’s not much for individual self, but craving for recognition of our existence being brewed by isolation.
The movie features Lacie Pound a character, Ryan her brother and Naomi her friend. She wants to buy a new expensive house in a posh colony “Pelican Cove” and to buy this, she needs a huge amount of money and she can get a discount if she has a rating of above 4.5. In order to get the required ratings, she finds a wonderful opportunity to be “maid of honour” at her friend (Noami wedding) and impress her guest to boost her ratings.
We have hardly overcome the threat of AI and Robots, but this new rating culture can make us vulnerable even more as a human being and redundant in the job market. For example, in UBER taxi service where the driver is rated on the basis of his performance being on time, politeness, and courtesy (Guardian.com). This way, the company manages the workforce and if any driver gets the rating below 4.5 thresholds, he will lose his job. My personal experience being in service industry in IBM and Barclays corroborates this fact that people in the service industry feel so pressurised to get “YES” or favourable feedback that they are ready to compromise with work ethics. And this leads to expulsion from job. Ratings have become inevitable integral part of our life. It begins right from flip-cart, to our customer representative, to mobile app, to Netflix. It penetrates everywhere.
Rules of engagement
The episode “Nosedive” is imagining a world in which our life chances and opportunities are solely determined by the digital social world. It can possibly decide our future prospect in terms our existence as a human being, our worth to the society based on this newly emerging rating culture to getting a job in the market, where your new company instead of your capabilities and innate worth & knowledge, may blindly follow this rating system. To a certain extent, it may appear speculative rather than reality; however, we can no longer afford to ignore it. Our dependence on technology and obsession has made flimsy, where whatever we are doing is contingent upon ourselves to be liked and appreciated by others. This has led to loss of our originality and self-worth has degenerated. The app ‘Peeple’ which allows people to rate others a raises ethical question. How can we judge the worth of a person on 5 star rating systems and can it be righteous? This is nothing but will plunge us in contempt for ourselves and humiliation.
References:
ii. https://www.che.iitb.ac.in/faculty/am/BMS03E01_Nosedive_for_PS_604.mp4
