War on Privacy

In Dave Egger, The Circle, privacy is looked at as being dangerous. Throughout the novel the majority of people want to have a sense of openness. A type of access to each and everyone’s personal information and activity. Unlike the events taken place within “The Circle”, in todays society there is a line to how much information is shared over the Internet, and we as the user have control over that line to a certain extend, is it really safe for someone to have the amount of access we as the user allow to be accessible. One should consider that the more information one may chose to share online puts that person at a higher risk for that information to be reachable.

In the novel “The Circle”, there is a consistent debate on wither privacy is safe or unsafe, and why too much privacy is dangerous and why the lack of privacy is dangerous. Two characters from the novel, Mae and Mercer, consistently go head to head. The two have completely opposite outlooks on privacy. Mae represents privacy as being dangerous. She believes in having a more open world. A world where privacy doesn’t exist and all is open. Mae believes all should be known and accessible by any and everyone and all should be monitored. She feels as if the lack of privacy and secrets is the best way to keep the world safe from crime. Mercer on the other hand, represents the danger of having an open world. Mercer speaks for why the lack of privacy can be dangerous and not in the world’s best interest. Mercer speaks and represents the people who do want privacy and do not want all of their business accessible to everyone to see. Mercer feels as if it gives to much power to people.

“We are not meant to know everything, Mae. Did you ever think that perhaps our minds are delicately calibrated between the known and the unknown? That our souls need the mysteries of night and the clarity of day? Young people are creating ever-present daylight, and I think it will burn us all alive. There will be no time to reflect, to sleep to cool”(The Circle 434).

In a sense, Mae and Mercer are the pros and cons of the lack of privacy, Mae being the pros and Mercer being the cons.

The Internet, along with Social Networks, can be a wonderful tool to interact and connect with old friends, promote small businesses, or even just to share your common interest and thoughts. However, being a active user on these social networking sites and actually being involve require you to share some personal information about ones self. Over time as website such as Facebook grow larger and larger they tend to share personal information about their users with their business and advertising partners. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&dviSelectedPage=&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlightinghtt “Facebook argues that social norms are changing, and the old definitions of privacy are outdated” (Anderson, Kent). As Boyed stated:

“I think the social norms have not changed. I think they’re being battered by the way the market forces are operating at this point. I think the market is pushing people in a direction that has huge consequences, especially for those who are marginalized.”