The Circle’s Technology, and What the
People Really Think
We’ve done a lot in a semester for
English Studies in the Digital Age. We’ve explored the
issues with social media and privacy, copyrights, how to tell a digital story,
and, overall, the effects of technology on our everyday lives. We’ve
read articles that challenged us, and made is think, especially about the
future impact digital technology will have on the way we think and learn in the
future. With
all the readings we’ve done this semester, nothing stood out to me more than
Dave Eggers The Circle.
The
Circle tells the story of Mae Holland, a young college graduate that lands
a job in the most powerful technological company to exist. The
novel tells of her rise in the company, from a mere customer service employee,
to one of the most public faces of the corporation.
As she
rose, however, her relationships outside (and a few within) the company began
to deteriorate, especially as her use of the technology that The Circle offers
begins to grow. She begins to lose grip on the person she was
before the Circle came so intimately into her life, her way of being. She
willingly gave into the sweet nothings that the company spouts, all the perks
and pretty wrappings on silver platters. We watch as she becomes less of an
individual, and more of a cog in the corporation machine.
Aside
from the story of Mae, one of the most important components of this story is
that of the technology that The Circle offers. The
audience gets to take a look at many of the products that The Circle created or
was in the process of making in order to offer to the general public. I
would be lying if I said that none of these products were worth taking a look
at.
Products like TruYou, where all an individual needs is one account, password,
payment system, identity for everything, or PastPerfect, where one can look as
far as possible into their family lineage does seem, on the surface of the
idea, very cool. Much of these products
however, weren’t as great as they were made out to be.
In my
opinion, many of the products that were offered in the book were invasive and downright
scary in their own nature. With many (if not all) the
products listed, there was no such thing as privacy, no such thing as
separation of your online and offline life.
People were forced to know everything, to be known at all times. They
were forced to be something that wasn’t completely them, despite Bailey’s claim
that people were being their “true” self. By the end of the book, many of the
characters of The Circle weren’t even human anymore. They were a mob, listening
to a single voice, a single mission.
To
think that society would be ready to use such technologies if they were to
exist is even more horrific, especially when one considers the outcome if any
of these products (used in the same way the book did) would have. I understand that we may want to learn what is
happening behind the closed doors of our political leaders, but there is danger
in knowing what everything that they do. There is danger in
having everything, out in the open for all to see. What was worse was how
cult-like everyone turned out to be. If anyone were to go against the mob, the
mob would destroy them utterly and completely. We saw this with Mercer, and to
a smaller extent, Ty.
Despite
all this, and, as I had mentioned before, the book really forced me to think:
What about our society? The society in the book is one thing, and quite a
fictitious thing at that, but what about the society I live in? What about my
peers? Would they be so accepting of the technologies, of the Circle itself?
The answer is probably an obvious one to you or me, but there are some people
out there that you as an individual have to worry and wonder about. This
is especially true, as much as this pains me to say this, of the people of my
generation, and the generation after me. We are the last to be
born before the boom of the technological age took the world by storm. We are
the last to remember what it was like before all these computers, tablets,
iPods and smaller phones, much more delicate phones (I still remember the brick
ones and the very first Nokia). We knew the only way to tell
someone about your day was by a telephone call, in person, or if you had one,
email.
Or, if one was feeling particularly fancy,
they’d write a letter. Sure, you were still limited,
but not by a 140 characters.
With
these thoughts in mind, my final project began to form. I had
decided, since I wanted so badly to know what my peers would think about these
products, I’d just ask them. I chose to interview five to
ten people on the tech of the Circle. It was a fairly simple,
sweet, and to the point: to find out how much we’d been
corrupted –for lack of a better word – by the digital age.
I made
up the questions describing various tech from the book, chose my interviewees,
and, when they weren’t as busy, had a talk with them. The most important part of doing this interview
was that it had to be people that had not yet read the book. It, of course,
would have been an unfair advantage. Thankfully, The Circle hasn’t been out long enough, and kind of ensured that it
wasn’t that well read yet.
I have
to admit, in doing this project, I was a little worried. I was
worried that a good portion of the people I asked would be for many of the
products I would tell them about, considering I was just describing the product
to them, and they wouldn’t have the context I did concerning it. I know
that people are entitled to their opinion, but it’s still worrying if these
product, (at least the more extreme ones) seem appealing. It
does make you wonder, if the future that Eggers predicts is much accurate that
fiction thought it would be.
That in
itself is an interesting thought, considering that many of the critics and
reviewers of The Circle consider
Egger’s portrayal of the internet and technology not really accurate, and are
quick to point out that Egger’s himself has no real interest in technology.
Yet, in reading the novel, people choose to focus on what he had to say about
it, and not the underlying themes surrounding it. As said by Jen Doll in the article “Dave
Eggers Deserves a ‘Smile’ for Getting the Internet Wrong in “The Circle”:
The danger of
writing a book about the Internet is that you’re writing a book about the
Internet, thereby invoking the myriad voices and possible opinions contained
within this giant, amorphous collective — whether they agree with you or not…In
Eggers's bleakly amusing depiction of the lead-up to an authoritarian digital
society, what many have chosen to focus on is not the thematic but the explicit
and literal.
In a
way, I guess I am like one of those critics, focusing on the “explicit and
literal”. But can I be blamed, when the explicit and literal is so alarming? I
at least know that the themes exist, but what is said about society has a
stronger initial pull than the theme did, and in turn, this is what I focused
my project on.
I
realize that I could have done practically anything for this project. I
could have had my friends reenact one of my short stories, I could have done
some project based on the article “You are what you Read” and had a little
journey of sorts through Barnes & Noble. I also realize that in many ways this project
could have been the critical paper: ten pages worth of my thoughts on what
society is turning into. As much as I would have loved to do either, this felt
right to me. Going outside of the community of our classroom and getting the
opinions of others, who don’t get the joy of experiencing our class, felt much
more important to me. I can only hope that my efforts in this paper and the
interview video connected to it prove my words true.
