#thecircle102p01

According to the “Transactional Model,” communication functions in a circular motion with four main sections: the sender, the channel, the receiver, and the feedback. Feedback refers to signals and messages that the receiver feeds back to the sender. These messages aren’t always verbal, and could be portrayed on their countenance. The feedback can aid the sender in understanding how the message affected the receiver or trigger further explanation. That being said, when communicating through a channel that makes nonverbal feedback invisible, how might conversations and relationships be affected? Technology today has impaired society’s communication skills; this has led to defective relationships and misconstrued conversations. Dave Eggers shows the value of communication through Annie and Mae as they battle with the flaws of today’s technology and the power of knowledge in the following excerpt from The Circle:

When she got back to her desk, there were eleven messages from Annie.

She read the first: Hey Mae, realizing I shouldn’t have gone off on Dan and Alistair that way. Wasn’t very nice. Not Circly at all. Pretend I didn’t say it.

The second: You get my last msg?

The third: Starting to freak out a little. Why aren’t you answering me?

Surveillance; can it be the very thing that saves this world or would “destructive” be a more apt description? Dave Eggers answers this question in an interview with “The Telegraph,” wherein he states that it is “capable of both” (Wood). This modern technology has shown and proved its benefits and disadvantages through many events that have occurred in the past decade. Eggers demonstrates them, as well, in at least three different scenarios throughout his novel, “The Circle.”

During her early days of joining a prevailing internet company, the “Circle”, Mae Holland is presented with a new technology called SeeChange. As the product is being introduced, Mae is intrigued by its features and capabilities. Eggers uses the presentation of the new technology to portray how quickly people can be persuaded when presented with just the right amount of information. Bailey, the presenter, shows how using these surveillance cameras have benefitted him; he also displays the potential benefits for the audience and the subsequent vision of world through SeeChange. The innovators behind the concept believe that awareness of surveillance will be enough to promote an improvement in the moral conduct of the human race as a whole. Eggers is mocking society’s misconception of the solution to crime through this product. He satirizes the belief that everyone will behave appropriately when they are being watched: this implies that he does not agree with the hypothesis. None the less, the introduction of SeeChange results in a prodigious array of positive feedback.

Bunton, Cam. "40 Million Photos Uploaded to Instagram Each Day, 90 Million Active Users."TodaysiPhonecom. PhoneDog. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Eggers, Dave. The Circle: A Novel. New York: Division of Random House LLC, 2013. Print.

Gibson, Carl. "Bob McDonnell Isn't the Only Politician Taking Bribes." Reader Supported News. Reader Supported News. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Lee, Timothy. "Here’s Why Cops Should Be Required to Wear a Lapel Camera While on Duty." Washington Post. The Washington Post. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

The Internet is a place where all people have the ability to voice and argue each of their own thoughts and opinions. Because individuals all around the world have this ability, people are often swayed from their own personal opinions when they read online debates and articles. In The Circle by Dave Eggers, you see this brainwashing and swaying of opinions through the main character, Mae. Throughout the story you follow Mae through her new and astonishingly advanced job at The Circle, but you see how much her character changes while she works in The Circle. You see this change because the technology use and her fellow employees are all seemingly brainwashed by the company’s rules and regulations of their technology usage. My favorite example of the way Mae is somewhat brainwashed by the technology she uses is in the book when she is taking a survey test as a newbie in the company. While taking her she gets distracted talking to another employee and her computer prompts her to continue answering questions by saying her name, but in her own voice. Hearing her own voice call upon herself shocked her because at first she did not recognize that it was her own voice. She was enthralled by the way it sounded because she felt like she seemed to sound so much more mature and different than she had before starting her new job at the Circle. By her fascination in the technology used to make her own voice summon her she was swayed to change her answer to “yes” that she had actually wanted to say “no” to. Another way that Mae is influenced by the use of technology is on pages 289-290 when she is speaking to Bailey, one of the “wise men” of The Circle. Bailey uses a mirror analogy to persuade Mae that having her own personal secrets from the company was unsound. Bailey says that keeping secrets is like “… a broken mirror” and asks Mae “if we look into a broken mirror, a mirror that’s cracked or missing parts, what do we get?” (Eggers 289-290). This question then made Mae realize that “any assessment, judgment, or picture utilizing incomplete information would always be wrong” (Eggers 290). The wise man of the company had totally convinced Mae that it was perfectly normal to give all the people around you access to your life through technology so they would never see and incomplete or distorted image of the person she was.

In our current society today, large and small corporations around the world use the Internet and other forms of technology to change the thoughts and opinions of technology users. For example, the CEO of the world’s largest PR firm has studied new documents obtained by Greenpeace and shared with Motherboard that “illustrate the extensive, meticulous planning that has gone into at least one of Edelman’s proposed astroturf campaigns, aimed at helping TransCanada mobilize “grassroots” (How 1). These specific astroturf campaigns are “increasingly popular tactic[s] wherein corporations sponsor front groups or manufacture the appearance of … support to stimulate a genuine social movement that [rallies] for goals in line with their profit motive” (How 1). This social media persuasion often causes Internet users to sway their decision of support from one side to the other. Many advertisements and other pop-ups are also causing people all over the world to believe in things they may not have believed in prior to seeing the advertisements.

Social media and the overuse of technology have both shown that these social sites have the capability to sway people’s decisions and motives on whatever they are aiming for.

 Works Cited

Eggers, Dave. The Circle: A Novel. New York: Division of Random House LLC, 2013. Print.

The standard way of thinking about the world’s most powerful companies has been generally assumed as companies following a system; a system organized with honest and fair procedures, healthcare benefits, and being inclusive for all employees. Dave Eggers’ novel, The Circle, is a futuristic society and most of the events in the novel occur in a manufactured community, but the employees refer to this place as the Circle or the world’s most powerful company. In the workplace and society of The Circle, science and technology is used as a means of control over the employees. Those in control and with the power are called the three Wise-Men. Some may perceive the company’s system as mocking a dictatorship or cult; the Circle’s complete control over human activity destroys the company, as it becomes a scheme consisting of three men with all of the power and their brainwashed and electronically controlled employees. Eggers reminds us that today’s society risks the possibility of a future dystopian society while technology and scientific knowledge continues to improve.

Eggers celebrates the fact that The Circle draws fascination and devotion from those working for the company. For example, Mae Holland, an employee in The Circle, beams with gratitude upon being hired. Eggers writes 

“…here [Mae] was, gainfully employed by the Circle, with her own health insurance, her own apartment in the city, being no burden to her parents,” (4). 

Eggers’ point is that the company lures in its employees with benefits, relief from stress, and essentially anything and everything that would have people from around the world lining up outside, begging to work for the Circle. Here many proponents of successful businesses would probably argue that the Circle is made up of employees who are the best of their generation. While this stance may be considered logical, those who support these businesses should be well informed about the system within the Circle. The most powerful one of the three Wise-Men, Eamon Bailey, reveals his level of control through his successful manipulative statements: 

“A circle is the strongest shape in the universe. Nothing can beat it, nothing can improve upon it.  And that’s what we want to be: perfect” (287).

In other words, the one who holds the most controlling power also holds a vision for a “perfect” monopoly and transparency through all employees.

Dave Eggers further contributes to what the viewers (outside of the Circle) know versus what life is like behind the scenes. Towards the climax in the novel, a heated conversation is held between an employee and Bailey, where Bailey is confronted about the ways he treats employees at the Circle: 

“You’re depriving them of something they have a right to. Knowledge is a basic human right. Equal access to all possible human experiences is a basic human right” (303). 

The essence of this argument is those with power have too much control and the company’s bosses were misusing technological advancements to gain more control as they affect human individuals.

People, such as those working for a popular and successful company, used to believe that founders of such powerful companies were created based upon a long-term envision and in order to succeed, any short-term actions within the company would always be considered appropriate.

What happens behind the scenes of successful companies is important because it is happening today and will continue to worsen unless philosophers, such as Dave Eggers, bring the issue to surface immediately and effectively. Along with Eggers, another philosopher Slavoj Zizek nails the seriousness of this issue. In his academic journal Capitalism, Zizek explains the root of businesses operating in such a way that mocks ideology groups and types of government: 

“The goal is invariably to democratize capitalism in the name of fighting excesses and to extend democratic control of the economy through the pressure of more media scrutiny, parliamentary inquiries, harsher laws.” 

Basically, Zizek is saying the fundamental nature of the global economy is becoming extinct as a result of businesses working in an unprofessional manner, which is exactly what seems to be the underlying cause for all of the mishaps that occur in The Circle.

A number of researchers have recently suggested that Eggers’ work has several fundamental reflections of a futuristic society. A recently published news article Choose Your Dystopia, it is evident that Eggers feels strongly towards his opinion and the underlying purpose for writing The Circle is brought to surface. Alexander Nazaryan noteably credits Eggers

“…fears the encroachment of ones and zeros upon the frontal cortex, where they multiply like a blinding tumor. It is the tragic conflation of information with knowledge that troubles him most, the illusion that insight is never more than a click away” and “the greatest threat to our freedom is our ‘feeling that we're entitled to know anything we want about anyone we want.’” 

In his novel, The Circle, Dave Eggers ultimately deprives each character of his or her privacy. By doing so, the characters are affected and react in unanticipated demeanors. Also, Eggers convinces readers to believe that the Internet and other technological advances deprive each individual of their independent privacy. When it comes to the topic of privacy infringement, most experts will readily agree that the government has a right to engage in as much privacy as we choose to expose on the Internet. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the conversation of who has the right to make these laws and if these laws go on to infringe the rights of all United States citizens. Whereas some are convinced that the government will only interrupt our privacy with limits, others maintain that with a right to infringe upon our privacy, it will be difficult to limit and carefully control each action. According to Eggers, the misuse of technology infringes upon one’s privacy and usually brings forth troubling, unexpected, or erratic consequences and reactions.

The workplace within The Circle involves a great deal of technology and encourages all employees to apply technology inside and outside of their working lives. The novel explores the lives of the employees who work in the manufactured community of The Circle. The Three Wise Men, also known as the company’s founders and bosses, are the ones to blame for the corruption of most people’s privacy throughout the book. Mae Holland is the most dynamic character in The Circle because she is easily manipulated. Mae experiences negative consequences from exposing her identity and questions Bailey’s reassurance that SeeChange’s goal is to “eliminate most crime, if there was full saturation,” (283) in which Mae carries out and responds by stating that secrets are a good thing when “it can protect someone’s feelings” (284). Essentially, Mae’s human qualities are revealed through minor statements from the beginning to the end of the book, but lose their meaning when she ultimately gives into Bailey each time. By allowing herself to lose each argument with Bailey, scared of risking her job, she disconnects from her individuality. The further on the story continues, Mae loses bits and pieces of her own identity. Mae begins to lose her identity and privacy when she begins to binge into a digital life. At one point in the book, Wise Man Bailey convinces Mae to wear one of the company’s SeeChange cameras, and although the surveillance would make her life completely transparent, she is convinced that “PRIVACY IS THEFT” (328). Upon agreeing to wear the new technology, “Mae stepped into the light” (295) and Eggers continues to describe Mae immediately after making the decision, 

“The feeling was of instant weight-lessness, of floating in blank space, with two distant but bright suns blinding her…she managed to direct her body toward Bailey…She lowered herself into [her chair]” (296). 

Basically, Mae’s emotions immediately began experiencing a turning point, in which she consequently ended up back in the hands of Bailey. Her life was no longer seen as a personal or professional one, but one available to the public through the help of “the world’s most admiring company” (2). As the story goes on further, Mae’s personality continues to change. According to the previously stated quotes, Eggers foreshadows Mae’s character and does so again when he writes “[Mae] would be going transparent immediately” (306).

To be a strong and connected community, The Circle requires honesty and cooperation from all active members. Mae is persuaded to work without privacy because the SeeChange provides her with a better work performance and opportunity to improve her individual skills. In addition to Mae’s privacy being exposed, the author lets us know that Wise-Man Ty disagrees with Wise-Man Bailey’s mission; Bailey’s intention being one of brainwashing the employees until everyone is at a loss of identity and programmed to feel content with Bailey’s laws. On the other hand, Ty contended against Bailey during a conversation with Mae: 

“His idea is radical, and in another era would have been a fringe notion espoused by an eccentric adjunct professor somewhere: that all information, personal or not, should be shared by all” (485). 

Mae feels intense pressure to remain a part of The Circle, but Ty’s emotions about the company’s corruption bring Mae’s individuality back to surface. The book also helps us to see how the digitally brainwashed woman feels about her imagined figure within The Circle. Of course, while her future success in her job might be worth revealing her privacy, which is what Mae believes is the only way to improve her work performance, the future success will only be accomplished by revealing more about herself until she is absolutely transparent. Although she is exposing her privacy, the company still implies much higher standards and perfection that Mae does not seem to recognize, even after talking with Wise-Man Ty.

Eggers reminds us of the dangers of privacy infringement when he discusses an additional idea: our current practices of allowing access into our private lives until we become transparent deprives us from seeing the “beautiful out here” (144). The previous quote refers to a scene in the novel where Mae is stuck between the decision of enjoying her life back home, while kayaking, or entering back into her life in The Circle. One reason Eggers might feel this way is because we are currently advancing technology in order to achieve easier access into the private lives of victims. Chris Baker agrees with Eggers in his article, which was published in The Washington Times Newspaper. Baker’s research shows exactly how these advances are threatening our privacy. The article discusses and concludes the use of technology in the workplace: invading too much of one’s privacy. According to a WJLA photographer, “It's a very uneasy feeling as you leave the building every day, knowing that your boss knows where you are at all times.”

On the contray, a recently published article debates that technology should be involved in all areas of one’s life. It is believed that the best way for one to improve at work would be to leave all stresses from home at home, and leaving all stresses from work at the workplace. As David Brin insists, “The best thing for society is to adapt to the evolving technologies and accept the ubiquity of surveillance cameras so that society can evolve and become truly transparent.” This philosopher bluntly states that with this already being an existing issue, the best way to resolve it is to embrace the technology. I cannot accept Brin’s overall conclusion that we should just coexist with existing problems. The possible absurdity of his viewpoint would be equivalent to taking away everyone’s privacy because not all people are heard the way they would like to be. Basically, these critics argue the future of technology will be extremely effective in society.

The advancements in technology have been decreasing the privacy level in the lives of individuals all over the world by public cameras that monitor each and every move a person makes in its scope of film. The Circle, by Dave Eggers, is a novel that shows the accuracy of exactly what these advancements can take away from an individual’s privacy. A quote from a newspaper article in the New York Times states that the main thought process of the characters in the circle is “if secrecy is eliminated, everyone has to present their best selves.” Although it may be true that when secrets are not present, everyone must present a better version of themselves, this still violates the human right to privacy.

In The Circle, the monopolistic company develops small cameras that are attached to some of the Circle’s inhabitants causing them to become “transparent”. These cameras are called “SeeChange” and basically invade all privacy of each individual they are placed on. These cameras, which could easily be developed in modern society, monitor each and every thing each person does throughout the day. This ultimately gives those who have control to watch over the cameras, the ability to see everything a person does throughout his or her day. Author of an article discussing this invasion of privacy, Julie Myhre, states that people are becoming too comfortable with their technology and relying too heavily on it to store personal information. Myhre says that “it's ignorant of us to think that the information is safe and will be completely removed from the memory once we delete it, especially since it's been shown multiple times that deleted information can be recovered”; which is a very valid argument because no matter what private information you may have on your phone or personal technology can be found and even used against you (Myhre 1). If personal information is stored on a technological device, it is open to the risk of strangers, hackers, or identity thieves to gain access to all of it which leads to extreme invasion of privacy

In The Circle the characters also debate the decision to put trackers in all of the children living there so they are able to display a child’s location within seconds. These specific trackers are said to reduce the amount of abductions, but they also invade the privacy of where children may be willingly going. The youth may not always want everyone to know where they are at all times every second of the day. People have the right to go as they please without the constant monitoring of their location. This use of technology relates even to the area that I live in right now. I am a resident of Myrtle Beach and it has been brought to my attention that over 200 new security cameras will be placed all over the city near beach accesses and stop lights. This gives the city of Myrtle Beach the ability to look over all videos taken and view things that those who are being filmed may not want people to see. Another way that tracking technology invades personal business is location tracking on cellular phones. Some people think it is cool to be able to have location tracking on their personal devices so they can see a roadmap of where certain photos were taken, or even so apps like Snapchat can display certain filters that adjust to the area you are in. Little do people realize that this use of technology is giving the world, and multiple companies, the ability to see where you are located at every moment of the day. To even further this argument, not only can technology track where you are located, but it can track all online activity. This technology is tracking our internet usage through “tracking cookies” that create “a blueprint of websites you visit[ed] on the Internet and can even contribute … to the personalized advertisements you see on various websites” (Mehyre 1). These cookies have the ability to save credit card information, personal addresses, and passwords for most websites. In The Circle Eggers also shows a huge invasion of privacy of the Circle’s employees when the technology they use is all sent to “the cloud”. The cloud is accessible to everyone in the company and any information on any person can be viewed. This issue is discussed when Mae, the main character in The Circle, does something she is not very proud of with another employee. Mae and Francis were videotaped while doing something Mae did not want everyone to see, but it was too late for the video evidence to be deleted because that specific video was already in “the cloud” for everyone to access. The Circle is definitely a book that shows each and every individual way technology can wiggle its way into all things you may want to keep private. Each of these examples show that although technology is beneficial, it also can invade the one thing most people are not willing to sacrifice: their privacy.

 Works Cited

Mehyre, Julie. "Technology Is Invading Our Privacy." Direct Marketing News. Direct Marketing News, 20 Aug. 2013. Web. 03 May 2015.

Abrams, Lindsay. "How Transparency Can Empower Patients and Fix Health Care." TheAtlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 19 Sept. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

Brin, David. "Surveillance Should Be Embraced to Create a Transparent Society." DomesticSurveillance. Ed. Tamara Thompson. Farmington Hills, MI: Green haven Press, 2015.At Issue. Rpt. from "Lessons for an Age of Transparency." New PerspectivesQuarterly. 2013. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Farman, Jason. "The Myth of the Disconnected Life." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company,07 Feb. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

Eggers, Dave. The Circle. London: Penguin, 2013. Print.