A dystopia? Sadly, for many, being ‘liked’ is now everything

Season 3 of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian science fiction series Black Mirror began with “Nosedive”, an episode set in a world where every human interaction is given a rating on which each individual’s social and economic worth depends.

Fast forward two years to the launch tomorrow of The Circle, Channel 4’s new social media reality show, in which “being liked is everything”. Contestants sharing an apartment block will meet only via a closed social media network, The Circle.

In this virtual realm they will build online profiles that can be as far from reality as they choose. The contestants with the fewest “likes” will leave the show – only then learning the truth behind the fanciful persona of one of their fellow competitors.

Cue a flurry of anxiety from campaigners concerned that the show will trivialise the baleful effects of social media on mental health, particularly that of the young people who are its target audience.

But if the premise of The Circle sounds like a toxic cocktail of anxiety, bullying and distorted notions of self-worth, it is arguably no more than a slightly heightened version of reality, with a better soundtrack.

The other day, as I was deleting texts from my insurance company wanting me to rate its call-centre staff, I heard my partner on the phone, saying crossly that the service was fine, but the barrage of follow-up calls was infuriating. It turned out that the bonus payments of the mechanics who serviced his car depended on their getting a top rating. Refusing to rate them wasn’t an option.

As with the car service, so with a recent trip to the States where everything, from the airport loos to the flight, the hotels and every tourist attraction required a rating. The return home has been accompanied by a blizzard of needy emails, demanding ratings affirmation. “Nosedive” isn’t a dystopia: it’s all around us.

But as The Circle’s resident team of psychologists should remind the show’s disconsolate losers, the only characters in Charlie Brooker’s drama who were free, contented and morally admirable, were the ones who rejected the ratings system.

There is a venerable tradition of embryonic politicians plotting their inexorable ascent of the political hillock to the summit of prime ministership. How different the approach of the Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, who has said firmly that she doesn’t want the job: “I value my relationship [with her partner and soon-to-beborn baby] and my mental health too much.” Her view subverts the notion – still common among highachieving women – that to succeed in a man’s world, you have to navigate male power structures.

Still more remarkable is Davidson’s resolute sense of self. The professional deformations of political life are notorious and horrible. I have been watching with appalled fascination the agonised media performances of a minister who entered politics with noble ideals, but is discovering with growing misery that principles are not necessarily congruent with a government job.

Davidson, having learned early and hard a good deal about her inner self, seems determined to avoid the corrosive effects of high ambition on the soul. Then again, when her child is 20, she will still be only 59. A very good age for a prime minister.