Humanities Analysis Paper assignment

[student name] 1

[student name]

HUM3000-001

Professor Erro

[date]

The Impact of Technology

The availability of internet access has ushered in an entirely new facet to human

understanding. Previous generations would seethe with envy at the mere possibility of being able

to instantly communicate with friends or family at the press of their fingertips. However, with

each rapid technological advancement, there is a much longer and more complicated adjustment

for humankind. For the purposes of this paper, those adjustment range from emotional

attachment, sexual attraction, and social ineptitude. Two works that perfectly display the struggle

involved with human understanding of changing technology are in the film Her, and in the

episode “Striking Vipers,” of the Netflix series Black Mirror. Leading to the concern of

technology changing the very essence of human interactions and sexuality.

In the film Her, protagonist Theodore falls in love with an operating system named

Samantha. Throughout the film Theodore struggles to engage in human interaction, as he is

going through a divorce. He invests all his emotions into Samantha, and they start a relationship.

In one scene Samantha acknowledges that perhaps her feelings are mere programming and are

not real at all. To which Theodore responds, “You feel real to me, Samantha. …I wish you were

in this room with me right now. I wish I could put my arms around you. I wish I could touch

you” (Her, 40:21-41:00). This leads to an emotional connection that expands throughout the

film. To consider artificial intelligence being advanced enough to participate in full

conversations or relationships might seem far-fetched, but it is important to remember the rate at

[student name] 2

which humans are producing new technologies. Allowing the film to provide foreshadowing of a

very possible near future phenomenon. To take an example from society today, it is not difficult

to find individuals spending copious amounts of time on their phones and ignore the people

closest to them. There is no telling what the future may bring, but people would have laughed at

the idea of wireless communication just thirty years ago.

The episode, “Striking Vipers,” has friends Danny and Karl reuniting after a year apart at

Danny’s birthday. Karl purchases Danny a new version of a fighting game they used to play

together that requires a new advanced virtual reality device that takes over the user’s mind. As

they entered this reality, their mind is taken over by a device they place on their temples. The

game puts them in an arena, and they began fighting with their characters, Karl as a female and

Danny as a male. The fighting begins simple enough, until Karl kisses Danny. This leads to

future matches that involved zero fighting, but instead resulted in Danny and Karl having virtual

sex as their characters. The issues that resulted in these exchanges were numerous. For Karl, he

no longer could engage in normal sex with his girlfriend because it was nowhere near as

enjoyable as the virtual sex he was experiencing. Danny began to ignore his wife and stopped

having sex with her because he was getting it virtually with Karl, even though his wife was

attempting to become pregnant with their second child. This occurrence of engaging in virtual

sex resulted in tremendous strain for their friendship. Karl and Danny confront their feelings and

meet up to kiss each other to confirm they are not actually sexually attracted to one another

outside the game. After their kiss, Karl expresses what he felt with, “Nope, not a damn thing.”

Danny responds, “No, me neither. So, that settles it” (“Striking Vipers,” 55:00-55:30). Confusion

with their sexuality developed because they knew they were receiving sexual pleasure from their

same sex friend, even though they both identified as heterosexual. This leads to the very real

[student name] 3

possibility of blurring the line between sexes and an expansion on the idea of gender existing on

a spectrum. This work also expands on emotional dependence to technology and the careless

treatment of the loved ones around them.

Both Her and “Striking Vipers” create this investment and over dependence toward

technology. A glaring concern is while both works feature sexual interaction with their

respective technologies, it appears unclear as to how to identify this sexuality. Essentially

meaning that technology is not bound by the human constraints created among societal

standards. Dr. Goren touches on this in her article, “America’s Love Affair with Technology,

The Transformation of Sexuality and the Self Over the 20th Century” with, “…technological

innovations of the cyberage have altered fundamental processes of perception and experience,

conflating private and public, and changing subjective sense of self, the body, sexuality, and

reality, posing new theoretical and clinical challenges for psychoanalysis” (2003). This reference

provides support to the concern over technologies influence on multiple aspects of the human

condition as far back as 2003. If technology can make itself contort or confuse the human mind,

then the extent of its capabilities are essentially limitless.

To say that technology has no influence on sexuality would be careless and harmful. The

emotions and sensations that the individuals in the works experienced were very real.

Psychological processes of sexuality are broken down as ABCD, in Anthony F. Bogaert’s

Understanding Asexuality, “A: attraction and arousal… B: Behavior… C refers to cognition…

…D: Desire. Focusing on these processes will allow us to deconstruct or break down and

examine some of the key components of sexuality…” (11). This gives a clear interpretation, at

face value, as well as validity to the sexual thinking and feelings that the characters were

experiencing. However, the concern persists on the problems that will arise from social

[student name] 4

ineptitude among current social norms. Unfortunately, that is something that would maintain an

endless carousel that revolves around unanswerable questions from potential, or hypothetical,

future problems. Although, both Her and “Striking Vipers” contributed to ambiguous conclusion

for the viewer to draw conclusions about what happens next, it did appear that for people to

become societies expectation of “normal” again, technology had to be set aside. Clearly this is a

warning of what is to come, but this will have to become a question to be answered another day.

[student name] 5

Works Cited

Bogaert, Anthony F. Understanding Asexuality. Rowman & Littlefield Publisher Inc. 2012.

Black Mirror: “Striking Vipers.” Directed by Owen Harris, Netflix. 2019.

Goren, Elizabeth. “America’s Love Affair with Technology: The Transformation of Sexuality

and the Self over the 20th Century.” Psychoanalytic Psychology, vol. 20, no. 3, Sum

2003, pp. 487–508. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/0736-9735.20.3.487.

Her. Directed by Spike Jonze, Warner Bros. 2013.