The unavoidable truth

I posed this question in an earlier post, asking whether Egger's thought technology or people were the problem and I have come to the conclusion that it is without a doubt people's own fault that privacy has completely diminished in our society and people have become more surface level and completely lost any sense individuality or strong character. Yes, technology does allow for this to happen but it is not forced upon us. We invite the high tech gadgets into every aspect of our lives. In Egger’s book Mae describes the feeling of posting for thousands of followers to see as a “buzz” like an adrenaline rush. Today, often one’s popularity is discerned from the number of ‘followers’ one has on twitter or instagram. People are constantly tweeting and posting pictures. A tweet can be about anything from your current mood to how many times you went to the bathroom that day. Kids tweet about big fights with their parents or siblings. Will even curse out their teachers for sometimes thousands to read. Privacy is thrown out the window. People invite this invasion and cannot get enough of it. True alone time is almost unheard of. No matter where you are, one can always be in touch with thousands of people through their smart phones and networking sights seeing what people are up to and interacting with them. 

I have to admit that I am no doubt a part of the problem. I bought and read The Circle on my ipad. Right now, I am lying in bed typing this post on my laptop. This, is an internet BLOG for everyone to see. My phone has buzzed exactly four times in the last minute. I check my phone constantly. I tweeted about dreading doing this project. I will probably log in to Facebook before I finish. 

There is no way to avoid this truth that Egger’s pointed out with his cautionary fable. 

WE ARE THE PROBLEM. 

Some passages that got me thinking...

In this passage, Gina, an IT type employee of The Circle, accosts Mae for calling posting and participating in the company’s social media sites as ‘extracurricular’. 

"If you visit a coworker's page and write something on the wall, that's a positive thing. That’s an act of community. An act of reaching out. And of course I don’t have to tell you that this company exitsts because of the social media you consider ‘extracurricular’ .... But Gina hit a groove and would not stop until she’d finished her thought. ‘You realize that community and communication come from the same root word, communis, Latin for common, public, shared by all or many’” pg. 95

This brief argument got me thinking about whether interactions on social medias are actually important to society. Gina seems to think that these interactions are vital to communication and community as a whole. In the book’s world which is supposed to be a not so distant future of today’s society people have lost the ability to have deep social interactions and only communicate on a very superficial level through zings, camera feeds, pictures, and posts. I definitely see that trend occurring today. Fewer people everyday are willing to pick up the phone and actually call someone, rather they send a brief text or email. Writing someone a letter has also become somewhat obsolete in the age of emails. Even though, there is something personal and sweet about writing someone a handwritten note. People are becoming awkward in face to face conversation and hide their social ineptitudes behind monitors and cell phones. 

In this passage Mae gets in an arguement over her new job with Mercer, her ex-boyfriend. Mercer goes on several rants like this throughout the book and his character seems to represent the people against mass social medias in today's society.

"Here's the thing, and it's painful to say this to you. But you're not very interesting anymore. You sit at a desk twelve hours a day and you have nothing to show for it except some numbers that won't exist or be remembered in a week. You're leaving no evidence that you lived. There's no proof" pg. 260

This passage questions working a desk job in which you toil away in front of a computer screen all day and have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. Mercer, a man who works as a craftsman of chandeliers from deer antlers had something palpable to show for his work at the end of the day. While Mae, has nothing but numbers. Is life behind a computer screen a boring one? I would say yes. Is it worth doing for a good pay check? That I am not so sure about and it makes almost ashamed of myself but money is definitely a driving factor for people as it is for me.  

Dan, Mae's superior at work scolds her for not participating in The Circle's social medias. 

"It was great, wasn't it? And it was great to see you there. But we have no record of you being there. No photos, no zings, no reviews, notices, bumps. Why not?" pg. 175

This passage stuck out to me because it brought to mind a personal pet peeve of mine. Often, in today’s society, a person’s first reaction to an amazing meal, breathtaking sight, or famous piece of art work is to whip out their phones and take a picture of it to share with their friends online. Do we even appreciate things for ourselves? Or do we just seek out these amazing things in our world just to show others that we’ve been to that certain vacation spot or the new hot restaurant in town. I am really not sure. I poke fun at some of my more social media addicted friends saying, “if you don’t tweet about the party, did you really go?” or “if you don’t post a picture of that meal, did you really eat it” Obviously the answers to these rhetorical questions are yes. However, Dan in the above questions is mad that she didn’t share these experiences because in this society privacy is selfish and stealing from the public.

Religion/Morals?

I want to bring up the idea of religion and beliefs of both the characters and the business of The Circle itself. I first think of Kalden when this idea comes up due to his mysterious and "sketchy" behavior and word choice. I think that both the business as a whole and the employees who work there dont seem to have any religious beliefs at all. This puzzled me slightly because of the similarities between Inferno (a prominently religious story) and The Circle. Granted there are similarities with hell in both stories but there was a huge lack of self reflection in the characters on The Circle. The three beasts in Dantes Inferno resembled three characteristics of Dante that brought him to hell. I didn't see these beasts or reasons why Mae was there, however while she was in The Circle her actions were in no way reflective of any type of religion. For example, sleeping with Kalden seems to be a bit corrupt for a workplace. This intrigued be because the actions of the employees reflect the business as a whole. The Circle is very clearly depicted as unprofessional as well as manipulative and just plain wrong. Sex in the workplace, video taping employees in the bathroom and manipulating their lives are all examples of the lack of religion and morals in The Circle. At the same time, this was impressive to me how Dave Eggers was able to make so many connections to two texts while leaving out a critical part of Dantes Inferno.

Any thoughts?

My opinion

I wanted to include my personal opinion on the book to the blog because i feel that it is important to give my recommendation. I would like to start by saying that i did not have high hopes for this book when i first saw it; especially after finding out that it was about a girl in her twenties looking for a new job. This did not seem very exciting to me. But once i started reading The Circle, it was like a snowball effect with more and more adding to the effect of the book. It was curveball after curveball for me, even in the first scene when Mae was tricked into thinking she would be working in the same kind of place she left, a grey cubicle. This idea of changing aspects of the book was sprinkled in throughout in the most interesting and entertaining way. Noticing the totalitarian system The Circle was using to run their business enhanced my reading of the book immensely. Whether it be related to Mae and Annie's competitive edge getting the best of their friendship or Kalden and Mae with their rendezvous midway through, The Circle was an absolute totalitarian nightmare. Dave Eggers did an excellent job connecting this book to both the past and the current day. There are similarities to both Dantes Inferno and todays world with Google, i was pleasantly surprised with this book.

Conclusion

                                                                       Michaela Salamone (Post #5)
To be honest, when I first picked up this book I was actually quite hesitant to jump right into it. It looked pretty long and boring, like a book my mother would be interested in. I had heard of Dave Eggers before, but I had never gotten the chance to read any of his books. To my surprise, I really enjoyed The Circle. It gave me a completely different perspective on technology all together. It was interesting to see the astronomical effects technology had made on Mae's life, along with the other Circlers. Even though the events The Circle's technology caused was in my opinion, very far-fetched, it still conveyed that present-day issue we all notice today: Technology is taking over our lives.
People are becoming so consumed with their cell phones- with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. Every day, more and more of peoples lives are being posted all over the internet for everyone to see. I wonder things like, Is anything private anymore?
I feel as though I know so much about other people-people I don't even know personally, just because of social media. We may not be getting filmed from a live camera tied around our necks, but we do post a lot of things to social media, which is out there for anyone to see. This novel really made me want to "unplug" myself from the internet, and to appreciate the freedom of privacy.

Other Connections

Similar to Michaela's idea of this book being unrealistic, I wanted to make some of my own connections between the book and the real world. This idea of The Circle made me think about the idea of Google. Today, Google is one of the most advanced companies in the world. Whether it be the technology they use or the ideas they come up with for citizens, The Circle has very similar characteristics. The Circle is described as euphoric and futuristic right down to the walls of the buildings. I researched the Google center of operation in California and immediately began to see the similarities. On the first page of The Circle, Mae describes it as, "heaven" with a "spotless blue sky" then she goes on to talk about the drive in movie theatre and its eloquence. After looking at images of Google, they seemed to be almost identical in their design. 

Also I noticed not only physical similarities, but similar operation as well. Google offers on campus living and free technology to use for work while on campus. This is similar to The Circle in that Mae uses a small camera around her neck to record her every move in The Circle. I happen to have a neighbor who worked for Google for several years; remembering what he told me, he made it seem like Google wanted to almost control their employees lives by offering so many "cool" things and benefits. He told me that living on the Google campus was nothing like the real world because it was to euphoric and perfect all the time. This is a lot like The Circle in that they want to control their employees by recording everything they do while they're there and make it very difficult to leave once you're in. My Neighbor said that when he quit Google, he no longer knew the people he worked with because they were so tied up in it, they couldn't understand why he was quitting and therefore didn't like him. This connects back to the idea i said earlier how Mae (by succeeding in The Circle) is only driving herself deeper into the layers of Hell. 

Who is Kalden?

I want to talk about the introduction of Kalden on Page 91. The whole passage is very awkward and above all else mysterious. He is portrayed in a very ambiguous way and from the description, it seems like he has no business being inside The Circle, although he does claim to work there. Mae is described as feeling unsettled and uncomfortable throughout the whole three page span of his presence. I was wondering what you guys thought of all of this.
Here are some interesting quotes from the passage I think you should take a look at:

"Standing in the hallway, under a tall narrow window, staring at his phone. Bathed in a blue-white light, he seemed to be waiting for instructions from his screen."

"His face was so open, his eyes liquid, gentle, unassuming, and he spoke so softly that any possibility of a threat seemed remote."

Kalden: "Well, I better head out, I'll just slip away."

Why did Eggers paint this scene with such mystery? What was he trying to convey through Kalden? Who do you think he is?