This week’s episode of Black Mirror was an interesting social commentary on the current way in which we document our lives. With apps like Snapchat and Instagram at our disposal we are constantly putting our memories, or snippets of them, on public display. The movie is an even more extreme version of how we document our lives right now. We are more critical of each other’s choices because we have open access to each other’s lives. We can snoop and judge as we please from behind the glass of a computer or phone screen, and in this way recent (when you consider them on the scale of the last 100 years) technological advancements might be dangerous. Automation has advanced to the level at which it might be actually be a hindrance to our personal security. Ultimately If you have access to these memories, someone else does too.

To actually imagine that we have all of our memories at our disposal, that we can play events back frame by frame is difficult. Such technology would be incredibly helpful because it would encourage honesty. But even the primary benefit of having such technology available is problematic because we as humans are adapted to be liars. To live in a society in which we are unable to lie would go against everything we know. To be able to scrutinize everything in detail might drive us crazy.The film includes applications of the device in preventing terrorism, for which it may be very useful. Certainly we would be a lot happier without the ability to record our memories, but would we be better off?