After watching “Filter Bubble”, Eli Pariser’s Ted Talk on the increasingly personalized and filtered nature of the Internet, I found myself on the website for The Filter Bubble, Pariser’s book on the topic. A blog post on the site by Julia Kamin from June 1, 2011 discusses a dating app called StreetSpark, where “love seekers on the site can plug into their Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter accounts to discover potential lovers with similar tweets, profiles and cafe haunts”.
This post caught my eye because it reminded me of the plot of a movie that was recently released: Her, set in the “near future”, about a socially awkward man who falls in love with his Operating System. While I haven’t had the chance to watch the film itself, I did watch a mini-documentary about the film, exploring the question “What is love in the modern world?”
The documentary features a scene from the movie where the main character, played by Joaquin Phoenix, goes on a date with Olivia Wilde’s character, whom he has been set up with by his operating system. On their date, Wilde’s character makes the comment that their bartender is supposed to be incredible, and Phoenix’s character responds with a remark about a mixology class that she took, something that he had known by looking her up on the Internet. Instead of being horrified, Wilde’s character says, “That’s so cute. You’re so romantic”.
This scene is significant because it speaks to how technology has dramatically altered the way people interact and connect with each other; as meeting and connecting with people online becomes more and more normal. While this documentary focuses on the ways that technology has and continues to change the way people approach romantic love, it also rings true for our discussions of personal narratives. Another quote from the documentary that I think is interesting is author and psychologist Esther Perel’s comment that “[Technology] may modify the way we go about meeting our basic human needs, but they don’t change our fundamental human needs”. Technology has caused the way that we interact with one another to evolve, but it hasn’t changed the “fundamental human need” to have connections. Technology has allowed the diary to survive and evolve into its current needs, but there’s still the underlying need to express oneself.
We don’t know how technology will influence and evolve the way that we connect and express ourselves; whether we move towards a culture like the one depicted in Her, or if we combat personalization and our “filter bubble” remains to be seen.