Is technology driving us crazy?

Eggers’ does an amazing job of staying unbiased. Though he comes close in certain parts such as the scene where Mercer dies. Meg stalks Mercer with an expensive system made to catch criminals on the run. Mercer, being the secretive and private man that he is, left to get away from the new tech crazy world that Mae tried to surround him with. Mae could never truly understand Mercer’s reasoning for doing this, so she tracked him down. Her doing this sent Mercer into a craze that eventually led to his suicide. Even after Mercer killed himself, Mae found a way to blame it on something other than her own actions. The question is, was Eggers portraying Meg as an insensitive overbearing psycho who was blind to Mercer’s needs, or a caring friend who was looking to help another?

The author also stays unbiased in many other parts of the book. When Mae is on trial for stealing a kayak Eggers perfectly portrays a nonbiased perspective. Mae feels completely justified in her decision to take a kayak out without documenting it in any way. She uses kayaking to reach for a deeper more vulnerable part of herself that is initially was draws her to Mercer in the first place. She uses this side of herself to get away from the insanity that her inner conscience believes that the circle is. Her yearning for privacy and to “get off the grid” is so raw and relatable that the audience is able to empathize with her. Though we are all thrown off when Bailey brings up his son who was born with cerebral palsy. He says to Mae,

“though he is living a very full life, always to improve his opportunities, he is confined to a wheelchair. He can’t walk. He can’t run. He can’t go kayaking. So what does he do if he wants to experience something like this? Well, he watches video. He looks at pictures.”(301–302).

Eggers pulls at the audiences heartstrings to make them connect with both sides of the argument. By doing this, he shows that he leaves the reader to choose which side he supports.

I believe that technology drives us all a little bit crazy. There are also real life cases of people being driven insane by the nonsense that we have made the internet to be. A sudden internet sensation was so overwhelmed by instant fame that he “was diagnosed with “reactive psychosis,” a form of temporary insanity.” His wife said that “doctors say this is a common experience,” given Russell’s “sudden transition from relative anonymity to worldwide attention — both raves and ridicules.” More than four months later, Jason is out of the hospital, his company says, but he is still in recovery. His wife took a “month of silence” on Twitter.” Mercer is driven to a point of madness not far from this after being followed by Mae and her cameras. Though it is not only the tracking that throws Mercer off the edge, but the pressures of a technologically advancing world and the fact that Mae attempted to push him into it multiple times. It all eventually drove him crazy. We have reason to believe that, as told in The Circle, we will only become more out of our minds with technological savvy as time goes on. We will either go mad because we are unable to handle the advancing world around us, or we will be brainwashed by the system.

Eggers also showed a bit of insanity through the creators of The Circle. To think that you can process all human knowledge onto a computer system is completely insane. Eggers showed the insanity of the three wise men, and in turn the insanity of the creators of Google. The three wise men represented Google’s inventors, and by showing this intense power and knowledge hungry monster that the Circle becomes also shows Eggers’ prediction of Google’s and our own futures. The likeness between Google and The Circle are uncanny and perfectly connect todays world with the book.