A sadistic version of The X Factor where contestants perform for their own freedom. An immersive experience where criminals are subjected to the same terrors they inflicted on their victims, in front of a baying audience. A grotesque cartoon demagogue using TV and social media to obtain power. No, these aren’t scenes from the first term of a Donald Trump presidency, but something only marginally less traumatising, and infinitely more likely to happen: Charlie Brooker’s techy anthology series Black Mirror, a show its creator describes as made up of “deliciously horrible ‘what if’s”.

Black Mirror review – Charlie Brooker's splashy new series is still a sinister marvel Read more

Few shows have wormed their way into the nation’s collective nightmares like Black Mirror, the new series of which premieres on Netflix from next Friday. Over two Channel 4 series and a feature-length Christmas special, Black Mirror has depicted unpleasant scenarios from the not-too distant future, in a way that has at times felt almost eerily prophetic. Four years before the lurid #piggate allegations about David Cameron came to light, there was The National Anthem, a Black Mirror episode where the prime minister is forced to have relations with a farmyard animal. Even when Black Mirror isn’t that prescient it always manages to summon up some malignant future spirit that speaks to our technological preoccupations of the present, from AI to augmented reality.

For Brooker – working, for this six-episode series, with guest writers – the key is to treat technology “as the Twilight Zone used the supernatural, to make something magical happen. The more horrible it gets, the funnier I find it, and then you know that will translate into a Black Mirror story.”

The new Netflix series duly opens with Nosedive, a “horrible comedy” set in a world where everyone is scored out of five. Like the best near-future satire, it resonates with our own present-day social media experience. So what can we learn from it and the rest of the series, in order to make sure Black Mirror doesn’t become a reality? We asked Charlie Brooker to stand in judgment on present-day tech issues: from hacking to Pokémon GO, and tell us where we need to watch our step…

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Blackest ever black: Bryce Dallas Howard in episode one, Nosedive. Photograph: David Dettmann/Netflix

Augmented reality

We’re forever shitting out these miraculous inventions but there isn’t time to think about their horrible consequences. Periscope was invented and [soon after] somebody shot someone live. It was bound to happen. We’re good at inventing the miraculous tools; not so good at evolving to deal with them. I went running in the park on the day Pokémon GO launched in the UK; there were crowds of people walking around in small groups. I thought: “That’s nice, they’re having a nice walk, it all seems like harmless fun.” How little I knew! They might have been planning to attack me! To take the optimistic angle, statistically it would be unusual if no one playing Pokémon Go was being attacked. There’s probably people being attacked reading their email. What’s the alternative? It’s to literally freeze all human progress and never improve anything. We’d get sick of that pretty quickly.

Modern tribes: the Pokémon Go aficionado Read more

Online reviews

I’ve got books and DVDs on Amazon and you’ll sometimes read ‘Arrived late. One star.’ And you think: “Well it’s not my fucking fault that Yodel threw it into a bush!” Things have become polarised; you’re rewarded for having an entertaining opinion. I remember from TV reviews, if you’re saying something is reasonable, it’s pretty dull. That carries through to the online world. What’s the solution? For everyone to realise opinion and thought is pointless. That’s not a solution though, is it?

Social media

I’ve scaled back my involvement with Twitter; it’s too easy to get dragged into an argument. It’s also completely futile. Is it helpful for trolls, is it cathartic? Does it prevent them from going out on a shooting rampage? It’s tricky. One person’s troll is another person trying to make a point. They’re trying to get you to listen to an argument. I don’t make sweeping statements on social media, mainly because I can’t be fucking arsed with the argument that follows. I remember going on there and slagging off Formula One. “It’s just cars going round and round…” I knew that would annoy them; it was me trolling them, really. But quickly the fun dissipated from that and it just became horrible. People were just angry.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Black Mirror: official trailer for series three.

Hacking

Is hacking ever acceptable? It depends on the motive. 2600: The Hacker Quarterly offered $10k to whoever got them Donald Trump’s tax details. It’s a new thing to worry about. What would be the equivalent of that for most people? Someone reading your diaries. Something reading your innermost thoughts. That’s the fear isn’t it? But you get people who do it with a view to exposing a security flaw and alerting the company involved. So it can be worthwhile: you find a flaw in iCloud, you tell Apple and they fix it. And they give you a job and fire a hose of gold coins at you. Can we fix it? I don’t think we ever can. It has been regulated against. That’s the point: hackers ignore regulation. Things might possibly go full-circle. We’ll resort to Post-it notes. Isn’t that the plot of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica? It survives because it’s not online. We’ll go back to smoke signals, carrier pigeons and those ravens they use in Game Of Thrones.

Online dating

Tinder is the ultimate gamification of romance. It’s Pokémon GO for the heart. It’s basically what’s destroying the club scene. People used to go to nightclubs to meet people, but the middle man’s been cut out. The only people who still go to clubs now are people who actually like clubs. Which, as it turns out, is not a big enough subset to keep the clubs viable. The reports I hear about Tinder are that it puts you in a constant pattern of thinking there’s something better round the corner. And as we all know in life… there never is.

Artificial intelligence

Google Allo is a messaging app that fills in your conversation for you in your style. It’s basically an episode we did called Be Right Back [where a bereaved woman clones her dead partner from his social media profile]. I read a thing where two people put them on autopilot; they’re having a conversation [with each other], and they’re not even there. God knows where that’s going to go; what if they fall in love? You take a computer for granted. Then, when you get the spinning beach ball or the Wi-Fi goes down it’s like “For fuck’s sake!” You scream and shout at them. I’ve read about a device that remembers all the times you’ve shouted at it and gives you fucking payback. It’s a very Black Mirror idea.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Blaze a trail: Malachi Kirby in Black Mirror episode Men Against Fire. Photograph: Laurie Sparham/Netflix

Smartphones

I used to smoke and the first thing I did was reach for a cigarette. Now the first thing I do is that [reaches for iPhone]. In 30 years’ time there will be a drama series set in 2016. Characters will be on their phones and the viewers will look at it like we do with Mad Men and smoking: “Look at them! They’re all on their phones in meetings! Well, of course, they didn’t know about the thumb cancer those things give you…” Having said that, I remember life before smartphones, and it was fucking boring. The most exciting thing you could do was get a cover for your phone, or play Snake. I don’t think we’ll replace them until we get in-eye contact lenses that do the same thing; so we can stare at people while we’re ignoring them. We should try and make people more interesting than phones.

Big Data

I must have been a recipient of this: Netflix must have looked at their data on who was watching the first two seasons of Black Mirror and thought “we’ll have some of that”. It can be slightly eerie. When you’re browsing online for sheds, two hours later you’re looking up something else… and there’s shed adverts being thrown at you. They shouldn’t do that – it feels creepy. It’s like when you mentioned to your grandmother ten years ago that you quite liked riding your bike so she keeps getting you Tour De France books. It’s not self-aware yet, it doesn’t know it’s becoming annoying. But when you put on Spotify Discover Weekly, it’s based on the sort of thing you like. And sure enough, you quite like it what they suggest. Thanks computer!

Black Mirror series 3 is available on Netflix from 21 October