Today, we will be doing a TED talk on the episode, Nosedive, from the show, Black Mirror.

In the episode, Nosedive, Lacie is an aspiring young woman

looking to improve her social ranking status in order to enjoy more privileges.

Her encounters with lower level co-workers

and attempts to get in high graces of her so-called best friend, Nay-Nay,

results in a low burning nosedive into social pariah status

as she so desperately tries to travel to a wedding

to transform her own reputation.

This is a story that follows Lacie as she goes from hero to zero.

So, with that said, the question we are asking is

Does technology evolve or adapt our behavior over time?

Because the tools of technology take big concepts

and makes them visible and measurable in a ranking system,

we argue that the digital world of today

and potential future in the episode, Nosedive,

mainly heighten social interactions by measuring social stakes, not changing them.

Hello, my name is David Escoto

and I will be talking about Fundamental Attribution Bias.

Fundamental Attribution Bias is the overestimation

of personal dispositional factors in others' actions.

It is easier and simpler to assume that someone's bad behavior

is a sign that they are a bad person

rather than trying to figure out what may have happened during their day

to cause them to act in such a way.

At the beginning of Lacie's nosedive, the way that the people behind her

as well as the airport staff respond to her behavior

is an example of people falling into this bias.

While the audience knows that Lacie isn't the type of person to yell at airport staff,

the people behind her in line assume that this is just how she is

because it's easier that way.

This couples with the Belief in a Just World where people assume

that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.

This is shown both in the airport scene as well as at the end when everyone cheers for Lacie's arrest.

To them, if Lacie wasn't "that kind of person,"

she wouldn't be denied entry onto the flight or getting arrested.

Hi, my name is Kaylynn Brantley

and I'll be talking about Discrimination and Ostracism.

Discrimination is defined as a behavior directed against others due to group membership

while Ostracism is defined as being excluded, rejected, or ignored by others.

So, technically, you don't have to be a part of a group in order to be ostracized.

An example of ostracism would be at the beginning of the show

when one of Lacie's co-workers broke up with his boyfriend and everyone stopped talking him.

Then, if you did speak to him, you'd be docked points.

While an example of discrimination would be when Lacie was hitchhiking

and the man didn't want to help her due to her low-rating.

So the difference between these two is

when the co-worker was ostracized, it was due to his personal actions,

not his group involvement like Lacie was with her low rating.

My name is Abigail Sweatt and I will be discussing

the constructs Aggression and Catharsis.

Aggression is defined as the intent to harm someone

that is attempting to avoid harm

and is usually caused by the offender's frustration

at an uncontrollable situation or societal rules.

One specific example of direct versus indirect aggression in the show

is during the climax when Lacie arrives at the wedding

pulling out a knife and saying overtly threatful things to her supposed childhood best friend, Nay-Nay

(You probably got another me.)

(I guess there's some other BFF you moved onto like a succubus.)

(I'm getting to Mr. Rags, okay! Jesus!)

(Stay back.)

(Stay the [censored] back!)

(I'll kill him!)

(I'll cut his head off and stick it up my-)

Though she is engaging in clearly direct aggression with the weapon,

the audience responds with indirect aggression as if she isn't even there

by ranking her with stars of one, two, and even zero,

forever destroying her status online.

Thus, this is likely why current social media ranking systems

thrive off of aggressive energy and sleights towards others

who hold lower positions on the scale to them

to find catharsis in an unsupportive, hostile world.

Akin to bullying, the only real difference between Lacie and the others in the episode

is that, by the end, she's holding a knife with threats

and they're holding phones, with the power to destroy.

My name is Victoria Wood

and I will be discussing Self-Monitoring and Self-Regulation Fatigue.

Self-Monitoring is when someone regulates their behavior to meet the demands of social situations.

When you self monitor, this causes Self-Regulation Fatigue.

Over time, you mentally become tired from controlling your thoughts and behavior

in order to seem as socially normal as possible.

An example of Self-Monitoring would be how everyone in Nosedive behaves.

They try to get as many good reviews as they can.

These higher review ratings symbolize money.

The higher your ratings, the wealthier you seem to be.

Lacie tries her hardest to receive high ratings

to buy a new socially acceptable house,

but, in doing so, she loses some ratings

due to becoming tired from constantly monitoring her self actions

and, towards the end of the episode, she gives up on behaving normal

and starts to say what she wants to say and do what she wants to do

even if that means lowering her ratings so much that she ends up going to prison.

Hi, my name is Jinyuan Xu

and my topic is conformity.

When we talk about conformity,

it means compliance with standards, rules, or laws

and it can be divided into two types:

private conformity and public conformity.

In general, people try to conform to the standards of other people and society

to avoid negative feedback such as discrimination, being excluded and rejected.

Like Lacie does everything to be like other people, but fails at the end.

But, in this world, no matter how disgusted we feel,

we still need to put on our own masks in order to get accepted by other people.

But, have we ever asked ourselves

if this is the life we really want and who we truly are?

Though using a hypothetical example with this episode,

the application of these social constructs display the idea that

technology has not altered or revolutionized our way of social interactions.

However, it has amplified the intensity of them.

Essentially, social media systems foster the natural social behavior

that we have wired into us.

Thus, we show that our digital world adapts with our social instincts and does not evolve with them.