The third episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror, entitled “The Entire History of You”, poses a futuristic setting in which technology has progressed greatly: a small chip can be injected into a person’s neck and can record every moment in his/her life as it happens.

Personally, I think this technology could prove to be beneficial in certain situations, such as identifying or catching criminals, finding contradictions in a person’s testimony in court, etc.  However, I also believe that technology like this can be used by a lot of people for their own gain and to find fault in others.  In this episode, the main character becomes obsessed over trying to find out whether or not his wife had an affair in the past.  He watches past events over and over and zooms in on various people/details just to try to catch the lies in what his wife is telling him.  After finding out that his wife actually had an affair, he removes the chip from his neck so that he won’t have to remember what she did.  This raises one question…because his brain isn’t removed from his head, wouldn’t he still remember that his wife had an affair due to long term memory?

This episode definitely criticizes the future of technology.  It essentially claims that if people have the chance to use enhanced memory, they will use it to search out the mistakes and question the motives of others–even those that they love most–instead of trying to make society better.  This will lead to a general mistrust among all members of society, and as a result, technology will create a cynical society.