The Circle

The story of The Circle revolves heavily around the ideas of social media and complete integration of one’s life onto the internet, basically eliminating all privacy. The Circle exists as a technological company where involvement in social media is just as important as work itself. The employees are expected to basically post everything about their lives though pictures, comments and reviews, as to “make information and experience equal for all”. At the end of the book, the main character Mae, wonders of a time when human thoughts can be completely shared, so as to be “equal”.

This story heavily reminds of two things. Firstly, the Borg from Star Trek. The Borg are a species mechanized life form created from other species, and are joined into “the hive mind” and are assimilated. With all their thoughts synchronized, they become the ultimate efficient species. The story also reminded me of the “stand alone complex” idea created in the animated show “Ghost In the Shell”. In a world where humans begin mechanizing themselves, an organization begins linking people’s minds into the internet where the world creates a continuum of mind all mixed together under the pretense that humans have the natural desire to become the same, this idea being the “stand alone complex”.

My overall opinion of the world created in The Circle is that it just shadows and augments the present world. With people carrying the desire to “share every bit of their lives” (I say with heavy sarcasm) on sites like facebook and twitter, I agree that many people do act somewhat similarly to the employees in The Circle. Personally I lack a desire to share everything that goes on in my life with the rest of the world (and admittedly I probably would go crazy in The Circle), but I think that even those who enjoy posting loads of content of social media would agree that The Circle takes the idea too far beyond a normal human’s ability to cope with such a situation. Either way, the mass social media of The Circle still develops from current social media and how people use it.

I’m curious though; do you think that the people in The Circle are people just like us? Or have they evolved to handle the mass amounts of electronic data received daily? Could someone in modern day truly live and thrive in a situation like that, or would we have to change?