Privacy is Theft?

Modern technology gives a lot of possibilities for people in everyday life. It is easier to stay in touch with your family and relatives, work more efficiently and make shopping. But more and more people nowadays are concerned about the privacy of their lives and security in digital age, as all their information becomes available for everyone who wants to know it via social media resources. The topic has been raised all the time by many people, but we always postpone it, thinking that it is not a right time to consider it. But it has found its literal impact in the book of Dave Eggers The Circle. The main character of the novel is Mae Holland, and through her the author wants to bring to us the main ideas of his work. The point of the work is that social media has penetrated our lives, thus it penetrated our privacy and personal security as well. And this circumstance has both positive and negative effects on people’s lives. In the novel it is explored through the lives of Mae friends and acquaintances. Some of them benefited from social media impact, like as it shown by exploration of Annie’s life and interactions between her families. But some of the characters have not benefited from this influence and it is shown on the example of Mae’s former boyfriend, who was restraint about social technologies and as it shown, he ended up badly. The novel is engaging due to the importance and powerfulness of the topics discussed in it. The themes are up-to-date and thus they are exciting to many people. However, the plot of the story is not rich enough in narrative conflicts to keep the attention of the reader, but still the work is worthy due to its discussion of modern problems of privacy and security in the modern world.

The key character of the book is Mae. She is a bright graduate, who finds a job in flourishing and successful company The Circle. It is a fictional organization, which deals with all social media. Mae is fascinated with her work from the beginning; she spends all her time there, not even having time to go to her parents. By the end, she has 9 screens, because she needs to share information and communicate all the time. But her friend and co-worker, Annie, notices very soon that their private life is not only their private life any more, as they even can’t go with Mae during the break and share secrets, being afraid that it will be known to all organization very soon. They can’t behave the way they want to, because everything will be known immediately, due to the social media. Not only Annie sees the changes which are happening in her and Mae’s life, Mae’s family and boyfriend tell her the same. One of the strongest scenes is happening between Mae and her boyfriend, Mercer:

“You know what I think, Mae? I think you think that sitting at your desk, frowning and smiling somehow makes you think you’re actually living some fascinating life. You comment on things, and substitutes for doing them. You look at pictures of Nepal, push a smile button, and you think that it’s the same as actually going there. I mean, what would happen if you actually went? Your CircleJerk rating or whatever-the-fuck would drop below an acceptable level! Mae, do you realize how incredibly boring you’ve become?” (Eggers 261).

It seems that only Mae is not noticing that her life is any more private.

Claire Luchette, in her article discusses such topics as privacy and person hood in The Circle book. Regarding the topic of the book, she raises the question to us if the privacy is selfish and what does it brings to save the privacy. She outlines that Mae’s losing her privacy didn’t make her happier, vise versa she became very inert. Mae has to think before doing something in her life. Claire states that the problem of Mae is not only hers; it concerns every one of us. She also outlines that we need to take this book seriously and it demands our deep meditation and awareness right now.