The Circle is a dystopian novel written by Dave Eggers that talks about the work process of Mae in high technology innovation & Internet sales company. Starting her career in customer service, Mae was invited to participate in designing many monitoring devices to secure personal safety in the community and the public area. Later, the installation of more monitor cameras and observation chips in personal electronics is welcomed by most employees inside the Circle corporation but gets strong opposition from individuals that cherishes personal privacy from being viewed by others. Mae’s ex-boyfriend who fears and refuses his exposure to the wide public fled from monitor drones that hold live cams and drive off a bridge. The depiction of Mae turning towards eliminating privacy arise a wide opposition of monitor cameras and social media posts across the reader’s group, and the writer uses many words to discuss Social networks via Internet, Surveillance, Privacy, and Utopianism, in today’s world filled with mess media and wireless Internet which forces injustice through indirect public vision.
The main character, Mae, participates in their company’s work using their products similar to real social media, to share life details through photo and video posts. As being criticized by many people for violating privacy and provoking potential crimes for utilized by criminals, media platforms symbolize sharing of identity whiling exposing individual privacy. In the Circle, privacy is perceived as the ability to restore individual intellectuality, as opposed to exposure to others and being surveilled. While one keeps attention on someone, it exceeds the boundary of making the individual a Voyeur, that he/she surveil another. Without privacy and exposure to the public, Mae is pushed to the front and makes her dependent solely on others’ support and advocation as she turned insecure and sensible. The surveillance makes Mae always act for her audience on live camera, but not what she thinks or intends to do. There is a slogan used by surveillance supports- “if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear”, which offends individuals by turning each one into others as he/she is forced to being monitored, which frames or rules people from having distinct hobbies or personal obsessions. Wanting to create an ideal environment of no crimes, Mae unintentionally accepts the gradually exaggerating surveillance plan indoctrinated by individuals conform in their group. As a large corporation, the Circle builds its closed community encouraging employees to rely on everything provided, to live with co-workers, and be contactless with outside. This creates a dystopian world through company leaders framing employee behavior and seducing them by twisting their moral guidelines, which reflects in many real-world cases of companies forcing the employee to fit in the environment and support to company-which is led by owners. Relating back to today’s rapid development of online community via social media software, I think one crucial question the writer wants the reader to think about is “to what extent does technology oppress or shape individual behavior in today’s life built through the network?”.