Mae is 24 and after making it through college and amassing significant student loan debt, she is stuck working in her boring home town at a utility company. How embarrassing and unsatisfying! When she gets the chance to work at a modern global tech company a few hours away, she feels like a star and makes the most of her opportunity so she doesn’t lose it. While the char
acters in this novel probably won’t make you love them, they do sound like a lot of others in this generation. The future is here and anything that can make our lives easier and more entertaining is welcomed. We comment, share, like, and post. Parts of our lives are now lived virtually, where distance is meaningless and we can feel close to our family, friends, and contemporaries anytime we use our technology. It connects us to everyone and everything else, bringing all things full circle. But once in a closed circle, is there a way to get out?
The Circle is a preemptive novel that elucidates the potential dangers and builds on the stigmas of a transparent society that becomes manipulated and subtly controlled by invasive social technologies similar to our Facebook, google, Instagram, tracking apps, and a slew of others we are familiar with. These internet based platforms save our preferences, track where we go, and suggest recommendations based on our previous likes, purchases, etc. If we could track and record our health over time and that of our family members for the sake of improving overall health care and medical technologies- that would be a great advantage, right? If we could change voting from an expensive and time consuming affair to an instantaneous click possible from anywhere, cutting the cost by millions and allowing the money to go to education or other areas- that would be a great relief, right? But if the improved health care also came with the government watching to make sure you take care of yourself and don’t eat fatty foods or smoke, would that be going too far? If voting became mandatory and the system could cut off your bank account or debit card if you didn’t vote, would that be an improvement to our democracy ensuring everyone did their part or a violation of our privacy? The technology is there and can be perfected, streamlined, and made available to all for the greater good, but should it be? These are the kind of scenarios Eggers brings into focus with his latest novel.
Readers will recognize new services and digital conveniences popping up all over our lives in the age of information, digital natives, and immediate gratification. Video feeds everywhere and facial recognition technology cut down on crime while internally embedded trackers save children from kidnappers. Surveillance feeds become the new social media and your life can be sent out to the masses if you live transparently in your own reality show. Knowledge and experience should be shared for the sake of archiving, studying, and improving according to the Circle’s philosophy: “Secrets are lies. Sharing is caring. Privacy is theft.” The main idea of this novel is that things happen over time, and the little things that aren’t harmful on their own gradually build up to bigger things with deeper implications, sometimes without us realizing it. I would recommend this book.