The “Nosedive” Message is Real

Even Self-Assured Social Media Critics Can Obsess over Ratings

Can the online social-media and consumer-service user ratings, those ubiquitous thumbs-ups and thumbs-downs, mess with your mind? Yes—I can assure you from personal experience.

Because I read and write on subjects of AI, social-media influence, mass formation psychology, resistance to propaganda, and even genocide, I thought I was immune. Not so. My recent experience made me feel like a character from the “Nosedive” episode of the Netflix series, Black Mirror. Black Mirror explores the unintended consequences of advancements like artificial intelligence, social media, surveillance, and virtual reality.

Before I share my experience, consider what happens in “Nosedive” (Season 3, episode 1).

When Bad Things Happen to Desperate People

In “Nosedive,” everyone’s social status is determined by ratings received from daily interactions with other people via eye implants and mobile devices. When humans see each other, they can give one another on-the-spot numerical ratings from 1 to 5. An overarching computer system tallies the ratings and gives each person their current averaged rating.

A pretty but not well-grounded young woman, Lacie Pound (played stunningly by Bryce Dallas Howard), aims to boost her 4.2 rating to 4.5 so she can qualify for a special luxury-apartment discount available only to the socially worthy. A social-score consultant advises Lacie to seek high ratings from well-rated people. Lacie decides to reconnect with her 4.8-rated childhood friend, Naomi (Alice Eve). Unexpectedly, Naomi invites Lacie to be her maid of honor. Lacie is thrilled, hoping to gather many positive ratings from the high-rated crowd that will be there—ratings from high-rated people will count more toward raising her overall score.

Alas, a series of unfortunate events that occur before Lacie gets to the wedding causes her rating to plummet. Lacie is delayed on Naomi’s wedding day, and she desperately, indeed crazily, attempts to reach the venue. Her luck going from bad to worse, Lacie’s ratings continuously drop, as other people see her problems and emotional state and react negatively. When Lacie finally arrives, Naomi sees Lacie’s much-reduced rating and disinvites her on the spot. After all, Naomi’s rating would suffer as other guests downgrade her because of her associating with the increasingly low-rated Lacie. As the story progresses, things for Lacie become abysmal. (I won’t spoil the Twilight Zone style ending.)

I highly recommend watching “Nosedive” on Netflix or Amazon Prime. If that’s not possible, blogger LondonCityGirl concisely and beautifully presents the story on her YouTube channel. That title, “Nosedive,” describes what happens when people vying for computerized social media acceptance stumble due to circumstances or say the wrong things to the wrong people. Ratings can spiral down, and, doing the math, you can see how hard it is to average them back up.

Above the Fray?

I watched “Nosedive” with true empathy for Lacie. Because I’m frequently thinking about online influences and propaganda methods, I saw Lacie’s struggle and pain but figured it couldn’t happen to me. I understand the game. I know the tricks.

Until last week. Only an occasional user of Uber, I was booking a trip to the airport and was having a little trouble with the app. By some keystroke I got the screen displaying my rating as an Uber rider. I knew about giving ratings, and much like Lacie did in “Nosedive,” I give Uber drivers 5 stars unless they really do something wrong. I’ve never given fewer than 5 stars.

I saw my rating: 4.7 stars! An immediate twinge hit me. Hey, why not 5.0? What did I do wrong? I’m nice to everyone in service industries all the time, and certainly to Uber drivers. I tip well. What did I do wrong to get less than a 5 from a driver?

Now now, my Rational Voice spoke to me. Who cares what your rating is? Anything over 4 is fine. (Just like for Lacie in “Nosedive” by the way, 4 and above is basically good.) Don’t distract yourself about it; don’t worry, it’s nothing.

When we think about it, it’s reasonable to ask: What do the rating “stars” actually mean? Five stars is better than four stars because of … exactly … what criteria? Friendliness, amount of luggage, noisiness, or a request for air conditioning? A combined rating in “stars” tells you absolutely nothing concrete.

But see how even my “rational” side tried to ignore the social-scoring numbers as not important – unless they fall below 4. “Nosedive” mentality. Which driver out there gave me less than a 5? Who sabotaged my perfect score? How can I find out?

The Mind Worm Lives On

Rational Voice tried to reassure me. Don’t worry about this stuff, you’re being sucked up into the social-media vortex, just drop it. You know better. You don’t need Uber. You don’t need ratings, forget them if they can’t take a joke!

Calmed for the day, my mind nevertheless started wondering later about the math. How many more consecutive 5 ratings would I need to boost my average back to 4.9 or even rounded up to 5? I’m a 5 person. This shouldn’t have happened. What went wrong??

My very unexpected personal struggle leads me to realize that most of us, even we who think about these issues carefully, are susceptible to the same psychological effects as anyone else. And that means: the more people enmesh with social media and glom onto “influencers” and AI chatbots, the more people will become the self-absorbed, scared, desperate, worrying, craving, clawing, and disappointed person poor Lacie became in “Nosedive.”