I See You Didn't Update Your Blog Information...

How would you feel if your friends and colleagues needed to know everything you did? Although people are naturally social, everyone craves privacy at some point. At the Circle, however, Mae discovers that her co-workers demand she surrender every bit of personal information. The Circle's overuse of social technology leads to an environment without privacy, where everyone knows everything about anyone. This lack of privacy results in the Circle community becoming too intimate with one another, even with complete strangers.

Privacy, as Mae learns, is a word in the Circle's dictionary. Before long, Mae is forced to understand the importance of interconnectedness at the Circle. One day, a fellow Circler, Gina, explains, "'We actually see your profile...This is how your coworkers, even those on the other side of campus, know who you are'" (Eggers 95). Yikes. Mae's coworker, already entrenched in the Circle's ideology, nonchalantly tells Mae how her information will be shared with and known by everyone at the company. I'm not sure I would be too happy with that. I think Gina's statement about sharing information foreshadows how problems will inevitably arise with a lack of privacy.  

 As Gina explains, there's no privacy at the Circle, everything about everyone is known by all. So, what happens when people can access even the most obscure information about you? They begin to get overly intimate. For instance, one of Mae's coworkers, Alistair, discovers she went to Portugal. When Mae fails to attend Alistair's "Portugal Brunch," she is summoned to a meeting with her boss. In the meeting Alistair is "holding back tears" until Mae fabricates an apology (107). Alistair's sensitivity to Mae's absence shows he feels too intimately about her, even though they have never met. When was the last time you cried over a stranger? I think because Alistair had access to all of Mae's information, both past and present, he developed a connection with her, despite them being complete strangers to one another. 

Beyond being expected to participate in every event she is invited to, Mae is also expected to routinely inform others about every aspect of her life. Mae is remonstrated when two Circlers, Josiah and Denise, discover that she kayaks and had not shared that information with anyone. Josiah angrily condemns Mae as "'not being engaged with the people around [her]'" (189).  Circlers like Josiah and Denise are accustomed to having complete "transparency," they feel intimate with other people's lives, no matter how obscure the individual is. Historically, it took days, months, even years to know a person's life story. In a matter of minutes, however, a Circler can know everything about an individual. I think because information is so readily available, Circles feel closer to each other than they really are. There is no human connection through technology, as there are no human qualities to be found in pixels and code. Mae's lack of transparency hurts her colleagues who feel intimate with her.

With such incredible technology, the people at the Circle can know a person's life story in a matter of minutes. This "transparency" makes Circlers feel intimate about complete strangers.