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• 1 2016-10-26T16:53:48-07:00 Human vs. Machine 11 plain 2016-11-02T12:28:41-07:00 Is binge-watching Netflix a more serious issue than what it appears to be on the surface? Perhaps this is a stretch, but maybe staring blank-faced and drooling over a digital screen for hours at a time has some connection to mind control. Was the prediction from the film I, Robot (2004) correct? Have we reached a critical point in time where robots begin to take over the human race? 
  
  No one should be taking these assumptions too seriously, but it is an interesting idea to give some thought to. Katherine Hayles' essay "The Body and the Machine", questions whether or not this exchange of power has already taken place.

  Linking subjectivity with computational media is a highly contested
  project in which the struggle for dominance plays a central
  role: should the body be subjected to the machine, or
  the machine to the body? The stakes are nothing less than
  whether the embodied human becomes the center for humanistic
  inquiry within which digital media can be understood, or
  whether media provide the context and ground for configuring
  and disciplining the body.
  
  -Katherine Hayles, "The Body and the Machine"

  As comforting as it is to believe that humans are still in complete control over machines, Netflix has possibly put the throne up for grabs by attracting an unhealthy amount of binge-watching. A major contributor to the popularity of binge-watching is the false sense of productivity we get from it.
  
  It may sound ridiculous to think that one can feel productive by watching a screen, but setting a goal and accomplishing that goal is where this feeling develops from. For example, if someone plans on finishing the last two episodes of Stranger Things, they will put the task on their mental to-do list. After completing those two episodes, a sense of relief and productivity arises when they mentally cross the task off of their list. This tricks that person into thinking they have actually done something productive when all they have really done is waste two hours of their day. 
  
  Since binge-watching is causing us to feel productive without actually being productive, a decrease in overall human productivity is bound to happen if this activity's popularity keeps rising. If humans are no longer productive due to the influence of technology, this will support Hayles' idea of media disciplining the body.