It was the first time I’d seen my girlfriend’s two best friends in a little over a month. They were both long-haired, crop top wearing selfie takers with a passion for Instagram, partying and boys. But especially Instagram.
“Jimmy!” They fake-squealed as I walked up to them.
“Hi ladies,” I said, wrapping them both in a hug.
“You didn’t like my Instagram picture,” the blonde said with a mock pouty face.
I laughed it off, but she was completely serious. She continued to pester me about it until I pulled my phone from my pocket, scrolled to her Instagram profile, and liked her most recent picture.
Could this have been a part of some flirtatious game? Yes. Was it? No, not at all. Instead, I’m convinced that she was suffering from the “new neediness” Mercer describes in the Circle. It’s the toxic need for approval that drives people to inward insanity and outward conformity.
Where’d this new neediness come from? It grew from the digital world’s emphasis on instant communication, the comfort level modern users have developed with social media, and finally the social value that has been placed in shares, likes and comments.
Instant communication is necessary only in emergency situations. But in our world, replying to a text fifteen minutes after it was received is considered to be rude. Social media and messaging platforms make it easy for us to send and receive all sorts of communication, and instant replies are considered courteous and necessary. But this pushes us closer to neediness. We wait for the return call or text, and if it doesn’t come, we think that the person on the other end is trying to send us a message. Modern digital users are familiar with this sort of anxiety, and take slow return times as a sign that the person they are communicating with is uninterested or angry with them. This fear is rarely rational. But it’s one small example of a new aspect of communication that has caused hyper-neediness in modern tech users.
Expecting a speedy reply is a result of constant digital usage. Modern individuals are constantly plugged into their devices, and for this reason they have developed a level of comfort with social media and the internet that can be dangerous. For example, Francis’s overconfidence in the Circle’s philosophy of oversharing causes him to damage his relationship with Mae when he records and posts their first sexual encounter. Alistair, the Portugal-obsessed Circler that Mae offends by forgetting to accept an invitation, curates his social life and passions strictly via internet. Similarly, modern individuals share incredibly personal information on social media sights, regarding everything from family issues to relationship problems to political rants. By placing these items in a public forum setting, digital users make themselves extremely vulnerable. Anyone can access their information and leave what are often unkind or crude comments. This understandably upsets the individual who posted originally, and could cause them great emotional harm and anxiety. This vulnerability gives way to the overarching neediness prevalent in today’s digital society—Users are willing to share all sorts of information, but must be reassured emotionally by those they share with. Because they are constantly seeking emotional validation from others, modern users are often seen as needy.
Modern users have become so comfortable with social media and technology that they base social value off of social media statistics. The popularity of young teens is determined by their number of followers. An activist’s post is considered successful if it garners a certain number of likes. In the world of the Circle, Mae’s job performance and campus social presence is determined by the number of “Zings” she posts online per day. These numbers give users a perceived value of their social performance, a seemingly concrete indicator of their popularity and success. Because social value is such a coveted quality, users take these indicators very seriously. This creates neediness—users actively hunt likes and other actions in an attempt to promote and encourage themselves. When they don’t receive them, they become distressed.
Neediness—in a relationship, in the workplace, online—is rarely a good thing. It drives people away and displays a lack of confidence in the person who displays it. Yet this is the type of behavior that today’s social media culture perpetuates through its instantaneousness, personal content and use of numbers. If individuals continue to use social media and other technological platforms without control, they’ll find themselves become needy and anxious, constantly seeking the approval of others.
I really liked how you linked the main focus of the novel to your own real life experiences that we all unfortunately have encountered. Some of the things in The Circle are so fictitious but at the same time, some of the things are so real that it’s scary because we see the dangers of allowing our online world to be such prevalent parts of our lives. Another part I really enjoyed was how you kind of wrote this post from Mercer’s perspective and showed how even though he was disenfranchised from his society, he was perhaps the most sane, rational, and real person in the novel. This was a great way to finish the blog assignments for the novel because it tied together all its themes and put it into the context of real life.