Technology Moving Forward
In the novel “The Circle” by Dave Eggers an employee at the Circle named Mae Holland receives a job promotion form Customer Experience to a job that just consists of her walking around campus giving tours and showing customers future products. Mae then accepts to wear a type of body camera called SeeChange, which entitles her to
broadcast pretty much her entire life to millions of her followers on the internet through a body camera that the circlers call “going transparent”. Would people in today’s society think wearing body cameras that exposes everything in their life and having hardly any privacy is a good idea or would SeeChange cameras in general better today’s society? I think wearing body cameras could be very helpful in many different ways but on the other hand can also be the total opposite at the same time. To add, I thinks that everyone has two faces, both public and private. When people are in public, they attempt to present an altered version of their self. In private, when no one is watching, individuals tend to act differently. Perhaps more naturally and less caring of what people think. For example, in private, I act kind of dorky and outspoken and in public, I act cool, calm, and just kind of go with the flow. In Dave Eggers novel “The Circle” he portrays that our addiction to technology, our allegiance to corporations that control the technology, and the philosophy that transparency is always better then privacy, will lead to a world taken over by technology for the bad.
SECRET ARE LIES;
SHARING IS CARING;
PRIVACY IS THEFT.
In the following paragraphs I will be sharing ideas and examples on the positives, negatives, and limitations of video cameras (and video cameras in general) from the Dave Eggers novel “The Circle” as well as in reality.
To begin with, one of the positive reasons of wearing body cameras is in “The Circle”, Mae worries that she may lose her job after SeeChange cameras reveal her partaking in an illegal thrill, stealing a kayak for a midnight row and if it wasn’t for the SeeChange camera being installed in the vicinity of the kayak’s she would have never been caught nor would have received the position that was handed to her. It in fact propels her out of the Customer Experience department and into a position of more responsibility. She is assigned by Bailey to wear a camera strapped to her chest 24–7, and roam the campus documenting all the wonderful projects the Circle is engaged in. Therefore, cameras are awesome to have for those types of reasons. For example, when companies or private parties have cameras like such they record everything that is happening around, whether it is criminal or if someone was just trying to revile something that happened in the past.
Furthermore, another reason why body cameras are a positive tool is because in “The Circle”, Mae’s body camera records footage of the aquatic species after being captured and taken to “The Circle” for educational purposes for her followers. In similarity, real life technology has advanced for the underwater video systems to do things that biologists couldn’t do with their equipment before. Marine Biologists have been trying to improve our ability to assess such fish populations in close proximity to structures that will assist in increasing this knowledge. In the present study, biologists have provided the first trial use of Baited Remote Underwater Stereo-Video systems (stereo BRUVs) for the quantification of motile fauna in close proximity to offshore wind turbines.
Moreover, when Mae’s father got diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis she put her parents on her health insurance and got SeeChange cameras installed in different areas of her parents’ house so that her father could be monitored by doctors at all times. In similarity to “The Circle” Mae’s father being monitored by the doctors through live feed cameras installed in their house, in reality there is a home security system called Logitech Circle Security System that can serve the same purpose as the SeeChange cameras. Logitech cameras are installed throughout the house, placed to the owners choice and are monitored by the companies security operators. Security bases are installed at every door in the house as well. If a break in or injury were to occur, the security operators would call in over the speakers on the security bases to make sure everyone and everything was okay and if not then they would send appropriate responders to assess the matter that triggered the alarm.
As for the negative aspects of surveillance cameras in “The Circle” and in reality, there are not many but for the most part, the ways that they are, are pretty big issues. For example, Mae and Frances were having sexual intercourse and while doing so, Frances had his phone that was connected to the “The Circles” cloud, videoing their intercourse with each other reviling everything without Mae knowing she was being recorded. After Mae came to the conclusion that Frances had been recording their intercourse she started to freak out, worried that everyone at the circle was going to see her performing those actions. To paint you a better picture here is the scene from the book,
…all of it doused in milk.
“sorry,” he said.
“No. I liked that,” she said.
“That was about as sudden it’s ever happened with me.”
He was still breathing heavily. And then some rogue synapse
within her connected this scene to her father, to seeing him
on the couch, helpless over his body, and she wanted badly
to be somewhere else.
“I should go,” she said.
“Really? Why?” he said.
“It’s after one, I should sleep.”
“Okay,” he said, in a way that she found unappealing. He
Seemed to want her gone as much as she wanted to be gone.
He stood and retrieved his phone, which had been propped upright on the cabinet, facing them.
“what, were you filming us?” she joked.
“Maybe,” he said, his tone making clear that he had.
“Wait. Seriously?” Mae reached for the phone.
“Don’t,” he said. “it’s mine.” He shoved it into his pocket.
“It’s yours? What we just did is yours?”
“It’s just as much mine as yours. And I was the one having
You know, a climax. And why do you care? You weren’t
Naked or anything.”
“Francis. I can’t believe this. Delete that. Now.”
“Did you say ‘Delete’?” he said, jokingly, but the meaning
Was clear: We don’t delete at the Circle. “I have to have a way
To see it myself.”
“Then everyone can see it.”
“Francis Please.”
“C’mon, Mae. You have to understand how much this
means to me. I’m not some stud. This is a rare occasion for
me, to have something like this happen. Can’t I keep a memneto of the experience?”…
With this taking place, in my point of view it is very wrong in doing, a total break in trust, and would make me feel like I have no privacy what so ever at any time. Something that is relative to this is a school volunteer in Glenarden, Md. Named Deonte Carraway was charged with 10 counts of felony child pornography, sexual abuse of a minor, and second-degree sexual offense for using a camera to video children performing sexual acts on each other under his directing and then published the video of the children on the internet. These kind of actions give videoing and cameras a bad name. Also to add, in the novel “The Circle” Mae leaves her parent’s house after visiting because a doctor at the circle told her that something must be wrong with her parent’s SeeChange cameras because the cameras weren’t working. And after leaving her parent’s house after finding out the issue with the cameras, Mae was driving and her curiosity of the letter her parents gave her before she left took her over. She pulled the car over and opened it and started reading. (The letter: Starts on page 369 in the novel). Almost finished reading the letter with four more double-sided sheets left, she realizes she is only a block away from her house and got out of her car and started walking back home. Thinking to herself, If they were truly upset, well, she (Mae’s Mother) would and could address it. (The problems with the cameras being in their house) When she got home and walked in the door she looked around for her parents and didn’t see them anywhere. Mae then runs upstairs and
When she reached the top and turned left quickly, into their
Bedroom, she saw them, their eyes turned to her, round and terrified.
Her father was sitting on the bed, and her mother was kneeling on the floor,
His penis in her hand. A small container of moisturizer rested against his leg.
In an instant they all knew the ramifications.
Mae turned away, directing the camera toward a dresser. No one said a word.
Mae could think only of retreating to the bathroom,
Where she pointed the camera at the wall and turned off the audio.
She rewound her spool to see what had been caught on camera.
She hoped the lens swinging from her neck gad somehow missed the offending image.
But it had not. If anything, the angle of the camera revealed the act more clearly
then she wanted it.
She turned the play-back off.
After that Mae tried to do everything in her power to get the video deleted. That her parents life would not be exposed in the way it would be after all of Mae’s millions of followers view the performance by her parents. In conclusion of Mae trying to get the footage that her body camera had reviled for everyone to see, Bailey said “Mae, c’mon, you know we can’t do that, what would transparency be if we could delete anything we felt was embarrassing in some way? You know we don’t delete anything here at the circle”. Therefore, her parents were going to be even more exposed then they were already. In reality, how would you feel?
I would be devastated. Also to add, I would never ever want cameras in the privacy of my house videoing every little move I made. Not at all! Could you even imagine that? Not having any privacy at all within the walls of your own home. I would definitely have nothing to do with that no matter the advantages or circumstances.
Is technology progressing to fast?In my opinion if technology reached the level it does in “The Circle”, I would want absolutely nothing to do with it at all. Unless people could set their own limitations to their own cameras or could decide whether he or she wanted to be videoed by public cameras in the outside world. Furthermore, I believe that Dave Eggers with writing the novel “The Circle” is trying to predict what the world will gradually come to in the near future. After reading the novel it seems to be the Eggers is on the right track.
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