This Anime Predicted the Future? | Serial Experiments Lain

From social media to internet addiction to internet privacy, Serial Experiments Lain seems to have predicted our digital age as it was just beginning... or, did it really?

Sometimes, certain media properties make eerie predictions about our future that come true. Anime has it's share of those; but is there any more prophetic than the 90's classic Serial Experiments Lain? Emerging from the era of the PS1, the anime follows a young girl who enters the world of technology, emerging forever changed; with a debate as to whether her ending is good or bad. But, what remains are the facts, for better or worse, technology, and their version of the internet (The Wired) changed this young mind in immense ways. Naturally, this draws parallels to our modern world. From Facebook actively harming mental health with Instagram, to internet personas, to kids growing up too fast, we can look at aspects of the anime and claim it's prophetic nature; that it predicted the future. But I'd like to argue Lain simply knew the past; the nature of humans and how we work. Technology is merely a tool, like any other. By seeing how we used them in the past, we can know how we'll use them in the future. I think this is what's great about watching Serial Experiments Lain; getting to witness human nature laid bare.

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