This essay shall look at the book ‘The Circle of Dave Eggers' with an aim of investigating the claim that technologies that have become integral parts of daily life in today's world and that this has led to the disintegration of the concept of personal privacy and security. We use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., the citizens of protagonist Mae Holland's world use the Circle for all of their social media needs. Mae is lucky enough to get a job with the Circle. While Mae is surprised by the Circle campus and all of the ideas and thoughts exchanged among employees there at first, she gradually realizes that working at the Circle comes at the expense of personal freedom and privacy. The Circle serves as an obvious analogy for our lives driven by technologies in many ways, but it also raises questions about privacy at a time when people are pressured to join in and "share" as much information as possible about them. Two of the slogans of the Circle—secrets are lies and privacy is theft—show us a possible future of having a culture that is so obsessed with publicly sharing everything.
The beginning of the Novel introduces us to a situation where Mae has started to work at the circle and is excited about it which is arguably the beginning of the analogy of ’the circle’ where one is excited to start out on social media platforms. She proceeds to catch up along with the workings of the company, and this might be due to her excitement. She scores very well in her customer service evaluations, but she realized that this is not enough to be considered to be great in this company. Her supervisor implies her with a pressure that the Circle “isn't what you might call a clock-in, clock-out company” (Eggers 176-77). I think that this means that Mae isn't sharing enough on her Circle profile—she's expected to be posting regularly, but on her profile, there is “No photos, no zings, no reviews, notices, bumps” (Eggers 177). What’s more, Mae is not expected—or even not encouraged—to leave the Circle's “campus,” she is expected to participate in discussions online, offer comments, click on photos, and more whenever she isn't sleeping. In other words, there is no such thing as private time or even time off when one works at the Circle.
The company’s slogans “Secrets are Lies, Privacy is Theft” is skewed towards the theme of this paper as it arguably illustrates the lack of privacy embedded in such companies as the Circle. This is because the whole company is under a pressure of sharing one’s privacy and forcing to participate in company's activity online or offline. Therefore, Mae gradually feels anxiety about her participation level and ranking within the company. “She embarked on a flurry of activity, sending four zings and 32 comments and 88 smiles She felt a profound sense of accomplishment and possibility that was accompanied, in short order, by a near-complete sense of exhaustion” (Eggers 191-192). Despite her strong desire to succeed in her new position, Mae commits the cardinal sin of not sharing an experience she sneaked off-campus for, a late-night kayaking trip. It is in a confrontation with her superiors that she and Bailey formulated the mottos of the company culture: privacy is theft, secrets are lies, and sharing is caring. Despite being severely criticized for her refusal to share her plan to Kayak and the fact that she could not share her enjoyment of kayaking in the first place, Mae becomes more entrenched in the company's mission by agreeing to wear a device that posts everything she hears and sees to the Circle.
In the middle of the novel, the company’s culture of non-recognition towards privacy can be identified through their actions. For example, the Circle offers health care for Mae's parents, but this offer is on condition to allow cameras to be installed throughout their home and answer questions and comments from anyone on the Circle about their lives. As Mae noticed, the notion of privacy is opposite to the world that the Circle is creating. But not everyone is accepting this. Mae's ex-boyfriend, Mercer, is among the few who oppose the idea of having to share everything with complete strangers. Mercer refuses to create a Circle account, and even chooses to communicate in what Mae views as a prehistoric manner: handwritten letters sent via snail mail. Although she's quick to look down on Mercer's backward views of technology and the Circle, Mercer offers the perspective that most readers will identify with in the face of a global corporation that wants to know absolutely everything about its users. He tries to make Mae understand his perspective by explaining: “Did you ever think that our minds are delicately calibrated between the known and unknown? That our souls need the mysteries of night and the clarity of day. You people are creating an ever-present world of daylight, and I think it will burn us all alive. There will be no time to reflect, to sleep, to cool” (Eggers 434). This excerpt shows that Mercer thinks that all this influx of technology that requires the user to share his information is unnecessary and dangerous. By him stating that it shall burn everyone he implies that this type of information sharing is dangerous as it may be used in a harmful or exploitative manner by such corporations.
However, in sticking to the theme of the Circle being capable of creating a loop for its users which one can really break free from, Mae wants to prove to Mercer that his thinking is outdated and ridiculous. When Mercer tells her that he is going to live off the grid in the wilderness somewhere where he won't be bothered by the surveillance state that the world was becoming, Mae decides to use a new technology called SoulSearch to show him that there's nowhere he can hide from the new order. In many ways, this is reminiscent of the ways that social media and the Internet have created a society where there isn't anywhere to hide once a person has established an online presence and shared information about themselves. A photo or video posted to the Internet is nearly impossible to remove once it goes viral, and what posted on Facebook or other media can be reasons to fire someone from a job or let them be in a criminal trouble.
In line with the theme, Eggers points out that the ways that our current technology-centric culture and desire to connect with others online is leading us to a path of compromised standards toward privacy. However, the result showed in the novel is exaggerated. In the real world, there should be more voices other than Mercer and Ty to protect privacy since it though people would accept a certain amount of exposure, there is a certain baseline level that many people will not allow being crossed. We should still be careful that we do not gradually lower our base line by allowing such corporations the opportunity to obtain very sensitive information about us. The Circle's real-life counterpart, Facebook, is there for us to connect with each other 24 hours a day, to “check-in” with our GPS coordinates at every restaurant we visit, post photos of food, and review the service, all before the people in charge of our dining experience even present us with the bill. If your face is clear in a crowd photo, Facebook can automatically recognize you and “tag” you, telling everyone where you were at the specific moment. Facebook even suggests new friends you should talk to according to the people you've already allowed to access you. Facebook can use posts that you've liked or the groups that you view to target product advertisements to you.
So here coms the question: Are we all following the same path as Mae, becoming more and more indoctrinated into improving our social media rankings at the expense of our privacy and autonomy? Only time can tell, but Egger gives us reason to be a bit more cautious about live-posting our lives in status updates, photos, and videos.
References
Gopnik, Adam “The Real Work,” The New Yorker. 17 Mar, 2008.
Green, Adam, "A Pickpocket's Tale," The New Yorker. Jan 7, 2013.
Higgenbotham, Adam, “The Unbelievable Skepticism of the Amazing Randi,” The New York Times Magazine. Nov 7, 2014.
Measom, Tyler & Weinstein, Justin. An Honest Liar. BBC Storyville: 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZGY0wPAnus
Teller, “Teller’s Seven Laws of Magic,” Lapham’s Quarterly.
