A Black Mirror episode that made me even more paranoid about internet usage

I feel as though a lot of people are getting more wise about what they do online and getting more concerned about how nothing is free and that sites that you use that cost nothing are in the business of data collection. More people are concealing their identity and browsers like Brave that block basically everything and the use of VPN's are skyrocketing. A lot of people have kind of woken up about how dangerous browsing the internet can be and how you might feel anonymous on the internet, but you aren't really: It is just a question of how it is that the people that collect this data decide to use it.

One thing is for sure, it almost certainly wont be used to your benefit.

Black Mirror is a fantastic show that for the most part focuses on humanities increasing reliance on technology in their lives and also how we become addicted to it. I have been alive long enough to remember back when the internet didn't exist and was also around for all the stages it went through to get to the point that we are at today where more often than not, people live more of their lives online than they do off of it.

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I think things got a lot worse with the advent of the smartphone. Back when I was in college we all had internet connections but we were restricted to using them in our homes and most people had such terrible connections (dial up) that there wasn't much you could do with it. I worked in a computer lab at my university that paid a fortune for a connection that was known as a T-1 and no, I don't know what that means. I knew at the time that it meant that the websites would load a LOT faster at the university than it would on your connection at home.

Still though, when we were out in public we didn't have the option of being online and mobile phones made phone calls and then slowly transitioned to text messaging, and it took many years before they became the all intrusive force that they are today. I am one of those people that will get upset with my friends if they are looking at their phones in public around me and will tell them to "go home if they are going to do that." It isn't always well-received advice.

Getting back to the Black Mirror episode in question; it is called "Shut up and Dance" and it is the 3rd episode of the 3rd season. Somehow, despite really liking this show I had managed to miss this episode and was told about it by a friend. I was delighted to find out that I in fact had not seen it and this was going to be a brand new episode as far as my mind was concerned.

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The episode focuses mostly on this one boy but also eventually introduces us to others that he previously did not know. They have all done things online that they shouldn't be doing and they are either illegal, unethical, or it isn't defined. They all get contacted by a group that tells them to wait to be "activated" and once this happens they have to follow the instructions that they are given or the bad things that they have been doing online will be sent to everyone in their contact list as well as the police.

Because the things they have done are things that could ruin their lives / relationships / or marriage, they have no choice but to comply with the anonymous harassers once they are activated.

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These are things that these people do not want to do and are very out of character for them, but because of the dirt that they have against them from their online activities, they have to comply. Some of what the people have been doing online is worse than others and we are not privy to what every character in the story has actually done. I'm not going to reveal what their various "crimes" are but they are not things that any of us would like to be caught doing.

This made me really re-evaluate how it is that I handle my internet usage in my own life, not necessarily because I am doing anything illegal or immoral but just because the show kind of highlights how much all of us really put a lot of information out there willingly that companies use to automatically market products to us in seemingly unconnected apps or websites. This has happened to me before. I've just been looking up something about dog food or it could be anything, and then I open up an app on a different device and lo' and behold, there are advertisements about dog food.

I am one of the careful ones out there too, or so I think, yet they still get me. Even though I don't use the programs very often, I do still have a FB account because some businesses here like restaurants will not communicate with their customers by any other means. I have been simply in the same room as someone that I am not connected with in any way and the next thing I know various apps are suggesting that I add this person as a friend. So now I know that even our location settings, which I need to activate from time to time in order to get a taxi, are working against us as well.

I have since deactivated my location settings but it is probably already too late. Whoever the data collectors out there are, they already know where I am. It's all quite frightening to me, honestly.

So there are a few things that I want people to take away from what I have written here:

• Put a piece of tape over your webcam on your laptop
• Be vigilant about your identity online including perhaps deactivating location settings unless you really need them like to get a taxi or use a maps app
• Watch Black Mirror
• Maybe don't use your phone in public around friends even if you aren't paranoid about data collection - because it is a dick move