"Parks and Recreation" and Technology

For anyone who has seen the latest and last season of Parks and Recreation, you would know that the main antagonist of the season is the internet company Gryzzl. By setting the last season in 2017, the writers are able to make predictions for how technological trends will evolve in the near future. For instance, Gryzzl provides the whole city of Pawnee, Indiana with free Wi-Fi. Although this sounds like a neat perk that wouldn’t actually happen, there are plans to provide downtown Buffalo, NY with Wi-Fi by June of this year. Many towns have had plans to provide city-wide Wi-Fi, even as far back as 2006, but eventually scrapped the ideas. Now that broadband speeds have increased and the technology to do so is cheaper, providing wireless internet access to a whole town isn’t such an impossible task.

One of the conflicts that the people of Pawnee are faced with is the obtrusive data mining conducted by Gryzzl. In the show, the company goes through residents’ phone calls and messages to find out what they really love and send them care packages containing secret guilty pleasures. Upset by the breach in privacy, the Parks and Rec team set out to deal with Gryzzl’s illegal activities. This issue is prevalent now, more than ever. The secret spying that the NSA does against its own citizens is a huge problem. The government should not have the power to snoop through our private data. Luckily, these horrendous acts have been brought to light and they are currently under investigation. We can also fight these powers by having educated discussions about them, much like the one we had in class last week.

The issue is even more relevant to companies like Google and Facebook. They sell our data to outside companies that try to market themselves to prospective customers. Then, after we are hooked, they use us are their own marketers to spread the word. In the Frontline documentary, “Generation Like” there is an extremely obvious connection between the series “The Hunger Games” and the marketing strategy of the films. Both subjects have teens fight against each other through a popularity contest. Though the actual Hunger Games are much more drastic, the marketing of the films is very manipulative and psychologically twisted.

Finally, there are several instances in the show where Gryzzl uses flashy tricks to try to win over customers, as opposed to arguments with true weight and merit. This tactic is used all too often by companies today. They try to persuade people into buying products that they don’t need by either hyping it up so much or creating a demand that isn’t truly there. Using this with social media is very easy, because anyone can lie on the Internet. With TV and radio, broadcasts need to be approved by someone, but the Internet is completely open to whatever information companies wish to share.

In conclusion, we should be wary of the government and Silicon Valley companies as they try to provide us with cool, free stuff that we may not actually need. As useful as public Wi-Fi may be, it may not be as secure or reliable as one may hope. On top of being a hilarious show, Parks and Recreation teaches us that future technologies must be handled carefully.