Point You to the Mirror.

Drama on Channel 4 has been quite ground-breaking during the 21^st century, bringing such edgy (no, not Hollyoaks) shows as This Is England, Skins and Red Riding to the British public consciousness.  However, Charlie Brooker’s recent writing effort Black Mirror has really caught my imagination, but not necessarily in a positive way.

Charlie Brooker: Genius or psycho?

Although the show does highlight some very important concerns that technology could create in the future, it portrays us as users: sensationalist, solitary and nasty.

For example, in the first episode, we bared witness to a Twitter storm surrounding the capture of a beloved Princess and public pressure was heaped on to the Prime Minister to get intimate with a pig (no, really!).Individuals, became enthralled with the amount of misery one man could suffer, simply because they formed part of a faceless mob. You can probably imagine the confusion that spread through my student house when somebody, outside of the Black Mirror loop, was informed our Prime Minister had done such a thing.

The second one then satirised the talent show format in a George Orwell 1984 sort of way, with the main character Bing, selling his romantic interest in to a life of exploitation through reality show Hot Shot. Over time, former characters were being homogenised, and sucked in to the machine, possibly a little too far but rings true with Britain’s Got Talent and X Factor.

This portrayal is in sharp contrast to the beliefs I hold dear. Technology and the modern age are primed for pure good, if used in the right way.

Take this blog for example. I wished to create a voice for myself, on a medium which is accessible to friends, new friends and strangers; whoever. This website took only twenty minutes in a day to originally set up but since, I have had some of my articles read by 23 people in Russia and 81 from the United States, none of whom I am ever likely to meet. Although I am writing about things which could potentially be distinctive of the UK, it is important to know that there are those out there who do listen to what young people are concerned about.

Times have changed significantly in the social media, even since the year 2000. In this year, the most popular daily newspaper, The Sun, had a circulation of around 3.6 million per day. According to stats published in October 2011, this number has reduced to 2.7 million. Though some of this change may be attributed to the controversy surrounding the News of the World and News International back in the summer, it clearly shows that news travels in lots of different ways today.

Twitter and Facebook can act as a central grapevine from which all young; middle aged; old people can keep up to date with current affairs. With the use of targeting and connectivity on such websites, news organisations have helped to stimulate healthy debate in opposition to the generalisations and meaningless statements that can often clog up news feeds, “Stu is eating an apple” or “the awkward moment when Robert Palmer is taken to rehab for his severe addiction to love”.    

I think it is inspiring that writers, irrespective of their platform, can have such an impact in such a short period of time. I want to invite anyone out there to use the internet as a tool, because it is so valuable!

Love Chips x