PlayTest

Sherry Turkle, alone together, Why we Expect More from Technology and Less from Each other, Basic Books

These stories especially the story with Ellen and her grandmother show how technology can be used to help connect people but the more people are connected the more alone people are. People eliminate the real communication in their life through smaller forms of quicker not face to face communications. It also speaks about how seductive virtual worlds are because they are always better than the real one. “Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities” is an important quote when relating to the episode.

Ryan Giordano, Digital Substance Abuse, Medium

This article speaks about how social media has changed over the years and how our behavior surrounding social media has changed. People have become addicted to the online world. People are always looking for ways to promote themselves as interesting individuals. Also,  people are always looking for validation from others on the social media to ensure that they are not outcasts. Social media has changed the way we share information and has even changed peoples perceived value of themselves. Ryan speaks about how he quit social media and this can also relate to the episode.

Brandon Ambrosino, Smartphones and our memories: Don’t take a picture. It’ll last longer, The Globe and Mail

Ambrosino’s article is mostly about how people are not living in the moment because of their smart phones. People learn and remember less from an experience whenever there is a smart phone involved. looking through the phone means we are not actually looking at the event but just looking at it as a memory already. A study was also used to show how taking pictures of things will make people more prone to forget things or experiences.

Antonio Regalado, The Entrepreneur with the $100 Million Plan to Link Brains to Computers, MITTechnology

This article speaks about neurotechnology and how it could be the next big thing coming out of silicon valley. This is quite far away but it is being worked on by many companies including Facebook. People will be able to share their experiences through their brain that is connected to a computer.

Episode Analysis

The viewer first sees the main character Cooper walking away from his home in Syracuse to travel the world. Throughout his journey his mother calls him and he never answers and just answers with a quick txt. She can reach him at any moment but their relationship has never been farther away. This is like Ellen and her Grandma. The smaller communication wins and real connection disappears. The quote in the first article “Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities” is very relatable to this episode as well. When Cooper starts taking the playtest he is completely amazed by the technology. He becomes exposed and vulnerable by its ability and ends up killing him.

While Cooper is traveling the world he is constantly posting pictures of where he is and what he is doing. He is alone but looking for validation from others to help establish how cool he is. This is relatable to Ryan Giordano’s article and the article by Brandon Ambrosino. While Cooper is traveling the world he still constantly on his phone and not really experiencing the things he is doing to the best of his abilities. When cooper visits places the show does a good job of showing him looking at the places through the screen of his phone.

Regalado’s article is most relatable to this episode. It is said multiple times in the article how complicated the neurotechnology is and how far off it is. Playtest seems to be a little in the future but still shows how complicated it will be to connect the brain to technology. It has potential to be very real and mind blowing but could be dangerous if we do not know how the brain will react  to the technology.

Discussion Questions

Should social media companies be responsible for any addictions because they know how addictive their product can be?

Should social media companies regulate how much a user can use their product or send warnings to them that they may be using it an unhealthy amount?