"The Circle" Prompt #2

Data and personal privacy is perhaps one of today's most defining issues; we as humans are constantly pressured to display snippets of our lives on various media outlets for everyone to see, but at the same time, we're also deeply concerned with exactly how much of our lives are becoming public. Sure, it's all well and good to post on Facebook about our families or a vacation we took, but we'd feel supremely violated if details about our romantic lives or our financial information was suddenly exposed to the public. The paradox between the social need to share experiences and the personal need to guard our secrets is a central theme in The Circle, and Mae's experiences with the company reflect the dark implications of a world without privacy.

Mae's struggle with privacy is exemplified in The Circle's reaction to her father's health problems. Generally, people wouldn't want to air the details of a loved one's illness to the whole world, since it's a painful and traumatic experience that's deeply personal for those involved. However, Mae's supervisors and coworkers seem almost affronted that she chose not to disclose her father's diagnosis, even though that's an aspect of her life that should be kept private. The Circle's vast encroachment into peoples' lives had been presented as beneficial up to that point, and quickly started to feel, both to me as a reader and to Mae, rather invasive. Computers today are constantly collecting data about us behind the scenes; the music we like, what websites we visit, our preferred shopping locations, even the types of people we associate with. But behind all of that data, we still have a wall of privacy; most websites require profiles and passwords to use, keeping us comfortably anonymous without being enigmas, and keeping critical information, like our address and credit card number, hidden from other people. Mae has none of these benefits; her every action, transaction, word, and misfortune is documented in the name of a communal experience. To me, it's not an experience if you take it away from someone and slap it on a screen; the memory and feeling are lost in translation, eliminating its meaning for the person who actually did it.

Mae's loss of privacy also begins to affect her romance with Francis, which escalates after his experience with the LuvLuv service. Mae had initially uploaded all of her data to the Circle's cloud as was required, but didn't realize how impactful it became until her data was sorted through in order to match her with a date. Although her data was technically public, she still felt as if her privacy had been invaded because the context of its use suddenly became very personal to her, causing her discomfort. This was further exacerbated when Francis loudly announced in front of everyone that he and Mae were in a relationship, causing her to flee the room in embarrassment. Until that moment, Mae had enjoyed her privacy because everything else about her life was privy to the eyes of the Circle, but Francis' seeming disregard for that privacy deeply disturbed her. Again, experience is key; a relationship is built on the shared experiences and emotions of two people, and is deeply personal for those involved. Mae's romance suddenly became like all of her data, public and published for everyone to see and share without any feeling behind it,

In a digital world, the divide between data and privacy often feels blurred; we want our privacy, but love sharing our experiences with others. Perhaps the perfect medium between the two is impossible, but as Mae eventually learns, privacy is incredibly valuable in all aspects of life, something the Circle ultimately fails to understand, much to the detriment of everyone else.