Social media, the place that seems like a fantasy land. Everyone is happy and everyone puts forward their best image. At least, that is how it appears. However, how close is the image we put forward related to how we feel in real life? That is truly the million-dollar question. For some people, their appearance on social media shows they are the happiest person in the world, but in reality… the case is quite the opposite. Madison Holleran may be the best know example of this.

I remember hearing about her two years ago. After hearing what everyone said about her, I thought to myself: “How can she be depressed. It’s like she had it all.” How do we know when we have it all though? Everyone’s goals and perspectives on life are different. For Madison Holleran, what she had wasn’t what it was made out to be.

Madison Holleran was a graduate of Northern Highlands in New Jersey. She was a member of two state championship winning soccer teams, state champion in track for the 800 meter, and considered an outstanding student. Her accomplishments earned her notice by Pennsylvania University, where she ultimately went to college and joined the track & field team. According to many people in her life, she was always happy and smiling. However, that changed her freshmen year of college. She wasn’t as happy and never smiled, even though her pictures on Instagram were different. On social media, she appeared happy and in control of her life; but, in reality, she was fighting a battle with depression. People thought she was okay as they looked at her photos; but had they seen her in person, they would have experienced something different. Madison thought her friends were happy as well, but they too were experiencing the same struggles she was.

In “The Circle” we see a similar situation with Annie. After her experience with PastPerfect and the truths she discovers about her past, Annie experiences crippling depression. To many, who only see her social media account, she is still the usual happy Annie. To Mae, Annie can’t recover, is not herself, and goes into a coma.

We can compare these events and their implications to our lives as well. Many people that you know may be putting a happy image up on social media, but they are truly feeling down. I know I have done it and I’m sure many of you who read this have done the same. People want to appear happy online and they want people to think they are okay. They want to put forward that false face.

I barely post online. I don’t find social media particularly interesting, as I feel people are fake online, and I constantly worry what people are thinking about me when they view my profile. I’m sure many of you agree that the best way to get to understand and know someone is through person-to-person interaction. Online profiles only give us a limited view into each other’s personality and interests. Online we can portray ourselves as who we want to be. For me, I could appear more outgoing and social, but in reality, I sit in my dorm all day and keep to myself. A positive aspect of social media is that you can be whoever you want to be online. However, that can turn into a negative as well. If people rely on social media to get to know you, then they never really know you. Or, people will think everything in life is going great for you because they are just using your online profile and the happy images you put forth. When, in fact, you could be contemplating the ways in which you want to end your life. Then people never know if you need help.

While social media has increased our ability to connect with people around us, we have to be careful about how much importance we place into it when we are judging how people feel. As they say, “The saddest people smile the brightest.” In some instances, the happiest online profiles could belong to the saddest people. Finally, if your friends or someone close to you appears to not be themselves, get them some help. Talk to them and let them open up to you. Sometimes, showing the slightest compassion can change someone’s life.

In “The Circle” by David Eggers, The Circle is a leading edge tech company. At The Circle, they developed new age technologies like SeeChange and PastPerfect. By leading from the forefront, The Circle causes a paradigm shift through the course of the novel. So what are the residual, dominant, and emerging ideologies?

The residual ideology is that of the older people who prefer to avoid newer technology. Just like we see it in our everyday lives, older people prefer not to use technology if they don’t have to. In the book, Mae’s parents and Mercer are in this group. They would prefer to just keep to themselves and use the same technology that they are used to, like cable television and radios. I’m sure that everyone who reads this knows of people like this in their lives. My grandparents are the same way. My uncle buys them all of these gadgets like Chromecast and Apple TV, but I’m the only one that ends up using it. The people in this group believe in staying away from the internet and just being able to keep to themselves. They value their privacy.

The dominant ideology is that of the older tech companies. The tech companies that are fighting a losing battle with The Circle. The people in this group could be Kalden and the government officials that come out against The Circle. They prefer a competition between tech companies and not one company controlling the internet. The Circle develops a monopoly of the internet. If you have ever taken an economics course, you know that monopolies are a bad thing. Competition is of the utmost importance. The people in this ideology believe in that competition and having free choice over what you would like to use. Today, we see this between companies such as Google, Microsoft, Sony, and Samsung. There is constant competition in markets. The people in this group are concerned that The Circle is going too far with their technology and it is reaching a point of danger. Most of the people in this group believe in a mix of privacy and openness in their lives. They’re more willing to share, but also see boundaries in what people should have access to.

The emerging ideology is that of The Circle. A company that pushes the tech industry to a new level and is attempting to grab power from everything. The Circle tries to form a monopoly over the internet so that everything must go through them. The people that belong to this group are Stenton, Bailey, and most of The Circle’s employees. They all believe that they’re going to come up with the next big and life-changing invention. The Circle is always pushing forward. As the plot progresses, you’ll see The Circle slowly start to become the dominant ideology. More people begin to follow and support the company as the novel progresses. If you don’t follow The Circle, then you’re crazy. It is like world domination. The people in this group believe that everyone should be open and share. Privacy and not sharing is a crime to them.

From the beginning of this book to the end, we slowly see changes take place. Slowly, the tech industry shifts from the emerging ideology to the dominant. The Circle comes to dominate the internet and information processing. You can’t do anything without The Circle being involved in some way or knowing. The beliefs of society slowly change as well. People become willing to share more information and believe less in the value of privacy. Will we see come to see this paradigm shift in reality?

In The Circle by David Eggers, Kalden takes Mae down one night to see “Stewart.” “Stewart” is a cube-like structure in which The Circle keeps all of the video information they have been recording. Mae seems kind of surprised in the book, but it is not at all surprising that The Circle has “Stewart.” If you think about it, The Circle would like to keep all of their data so that it can be accessed at any time, but that information just doesn’t go to some cloud in the sky. The Circle, like every other tech company or any person or entity, needs a place to store their data. Something physical. That is why The Circle has “Stewart.” Think of it almost as a much larger and complex version of a USB drive or a memory card. Now we may not have storage tech like “Stewart,” but we do have plenty of storage locations in the United States. Essentially, the United States and companies have huge facilities with servers that are used for the sole purpose of storing data. That is what The Circle is doing, but with a more advanced type of server than we currently see today.

What other technology do we have that often gets forgotten about? That is where Nicole Starosielski’s “Undersea Cable Network Operates in a State of Alarm” comes into play. How do you think that most of the internet’s data is sent across continents and around the globe? Magic? That would be wrong. Satellites? That would also be wrong. Undersea cables? Correct! You probably got that from the title, didn’t you? Most of the data that we transit around the globe is sent through cables. How many of you have DSL or fiber optic? Those are cables sending and receiving data every time you use the internet. So of course it would only make sense that undersea cables are the most used method to send data around the globe.

Now you’re probably wondering: “What’s the article say about undersea cables?” Well, in the article; which is an excerpt from a larger work; Nicole Starosielski visited the network operations centers where the undersea cables are monitored by engineers. Dr. Starosielski described the center as “a room dominated by computer screens, endless information feeds of network activity, and men carefully monitoring the links that carry Internet traffic in and out of the country.” These men don’t just monitor though. When something happens an alarm goes off that signals a problem, and then these engineers get to the real work. In order to maintain the flow of data constant, these men have to find why the alarm is going off and then solve the problem. Sometimes the problem is simple, like a loose cable, and sometimes the problem might be larger, like a cable break. The system is very complex and requires the best and most reliably engineers, yet this is a job that nobody seems to know about. Like most Americans, I didn’t even know how complex the system was before reading the article. One engineer stated, “Nobody goes to school and says I want to be in the undersea cable business.” There is no direct path to this career and few people even know about it, but these cables are extremely valuable to our way of life. What do you think would be the outcome if the undersea cable system failed?

Undersea cables are one of the objects that we take for granted and yet know nothing about. There are so many technologies and objects that help us in our lives that we seem to underappreciate. How about our indoor plumbing system, satellite broadcasting, calculators, or clocks? Have you ever thought about the complexity of calculators? I have, it’s kind of mind-blowing. Thinking about how far technology has come can be mind-blowing and yet we seem to know next to little or nothing about the objects we use on a daily basis. So I urge you to think about some objects and technologies that you use every day and think about the system that is involved with it. You may find yourself surprised. I think that appreciating how these things benefit our lives and how they work is important. Now, I think I need to take my own advice and go read up on satellites!

Author Jonathan Crary’s 2013 work 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep is a book detailing how society views sleep as detrimental, and highlights our efforts to curb and gain even the smallest amount of control over it. Crary begins chapter one with a look at the white-craned Sparrow, a bird that can go seven days without sleep. That is an impressive feat and one that the advanced research division of the Pentagon has been trying to harness. According to Crary, the Pentagon hopes to make soldiers that would ultimately be unaffected by sleep and fear. The main point by Crary, is today we see sleep as one of the last limiting factors to human productivity and achievement. Something that humans feel the need to overcome and defeat.

Why would humans want to defeat sleep? Doesn’t sleep operate as a yin and yang type function with being awake? In regards to this, Crary points out that in an economically driven world, such as we have today, sleep is a limiting factor in our 24/7 drive for production, completing tasks, and making money. Slowly we have begun to get less sleep as we try to do more and accomplish more. During the early 20th century, the average amount of sleep that adults got was ten hours. Just a generation ago, the average was eight hours and now the average for adults is a mere six and a half (Crary 11). As this drive for productivity and being constantly connected has increased, our amount of sleep has had to decrease. One could try and be productive 24/7, but eventually your body will succumb to being tired. Our mental-state slowly unravels and we experience a drop off in cognitive ability and performance. Ultimately, sleep deprivation will kick in and your body will force you to sleep or else your situation could become fatal.

This problem of 24/7 is extremely relevant in The Circle by David Eggers. In the book, the company “The Circle” is a technology driven country which encourages max efficiency and productivity for its employees as well as them being totally connected. On Mae’s desk she has multiple screens feeding her massive amounts of information at one time. While trying to complete her work, she is encouraged to maintain an update online public profile and to constantly share her thoughts and emotions. The system is obviously very complicated and requires someone to be able to multi-task extremely well. However, this also leads to the 24/7 problem as described by Crary: “24/7 is a time of indifference, against which the fragility of human life is increasingly inadequate and within which sleep has no necessity or inevitability” (Crary 9).

Mae feels that she falls behind on the social aspect of her job, therefore, she decides to going on a work-related social media romp one night. She posts, replies, and messages until she could no long stay awake. Mae’s productivity became limited by her need for sleep. That 24/7 drive clearly began to affect Mae. Her desire became entirely to achieve even more and more. Had sleep not been a factor, she probably would have kept going until she was completely consumed by her drive. In this world which is controlled by The Circle, everyone seems to be required to consistently do even more. To be involved more, to connect more, and to achieve more. Sleep is almost entirely viewed as useless.

In regards to sleep, The Circle seems to show a dystopian future where sleep no longer has any relevance to life. The employees are demanded to do even more, to adapt this 24/7 lifestyle. As Crary points out, it becomes almost robotic performance. These characters no longer seem to act normally, but are completely driven by what they need to do. Crary seems to be completely right, the world almost wants to abandon sleep and toss it in the trash. The characters in The Circle are almost achieving that. Mae’s night of work is a good example of this point by Crary. Maybe we should look at this as an eye-opener… and get some more sleep.

At the end of Mae’s first week at The Circle, she went with Annie to the Great Hall for the unveiling of a new technology. This event is a weekly event, known as “Dream Friday,” in which engineers and inventors at the Circle share their work, projects, and newest inventions. For Mae’s first “Dream Friday,” the newest invention is introduced by Eamon Bailey, one of the three founders of The Circle. In his presentation, Eamon introduces SeeChange.

What is SeeChange? SeeChange is a tiny camera with an image that is much clearer and the camera itself is “the size of a thumb.” Mae describes it as lollipop-like. Eamon Bailey pronounces it as an improvement on current live feed technology. In this book, this camera broadcasts live footage through a satellite so that people can view crystal-clear live footage at any time. Eamon shared in his presentation that he had set up a bunch of cameras up and down the coast of California. He could then check the footage any day and see if there were good conditions to go surfing. He also placed them in his mother’s house (without her knowledge), so that he could check up on how she was doing. SeeChange also had a wider use, to maintain transparency and omniscience. Eamon then switched the feed to cameras in Cairo, Egypt where a protest was underway. The audience in the book was then able to view the protests live. With this technology, any wrongdoing by soldiers could be spotted and human rights could be better protected. Proceeding in his presentation, Eamon stated that within a few years, two billion cameras would be placed all over the world. Crime would go down and human rights activists could have better success. Then they switched between different feeds from all over the world. People could see the world without leaving their house, just by using the footage from the cameras of other people.

On the surface, this seems great. You can view everything around the world at any time. You can almost have omniscience. Anything you want to see or know can be accessed through the tips of your fingers. You don’t have to watch the news to only obtain a limited picture of the protests in Egypt, when you can see them live with SeeChange! Today, sometimes we feel omniscient. With the internet, we can access all the information we want at any time about anything, but SeeChange allows this to be taken even further. You can have plenty of visual information too. I could see what was going on at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France with just a few clicks. Right now you can view some videos that people recorded, photos, or read about the Eiffel Tower. With SeeChange, you could view it live and everything that was happening there at that moment. However, SeeChange could also mean access to too much data and the end of privacy. Sometimes in life we are not meant to know everything or see everything. Privacy is important. Look what Eamon did to his mother, he attached cameras in her house without her permission! SeeChange could be a technology that could become widely used by stalkers or spies. How would you feel if you found out there was a camera in your bathroom filming 24/7 that anyone could have access too? I know that most people would probably feel extremely violated. So while SeeChange seems great on the surface, all this knowledge at the tips of your fingers might be too much. Privacy is important, even at the cost of omniscience.

When reading The Circle, I caught myself comparing SeeChange to the telescreens in George Orwell’s 1984. While on the surface, the telescreens seemed like a great way to communicate and have a better grasp at the world around you, they quickly became used for surveillance by the Thought Police. Citizens became compelled to be obedient or else they would be arrested by the Thought Police at any sign of disobedience or “unusual” or “uncommon” thought. I feel that SeeChange will become used to the same effect. They induce people to be more aware of what they are doing, knowing that someone could be watching, and could ultimately cause people to think more mainstream. Some people have beliefs that are supported by valid reasoning but are frowned upon by others. With surveillance devices like SeeChange and the 1984 telescreens, people desire to fit in and avoid any trouble they may encounter from thinking differently. That is why I think SeeChange is a dangerous technology.

In the book, Eamon really tries to grab at the possibilities with this new technology. By placing it in Cairo, Egypt, he is attempting to enact change. Eamon is essentially trying to show the value of transparency. Not just the fact that governments and militaries should be transparent, but that people should be transparent as well. At The Circle they believe that transparency and sharing knowledge is extremely valuable and beneficial for all, and that it is a crime to keep knowledge to yourself. SeeChange is a technology that allows them to further that ideal. People around the world can use them to help create greater sharing of knowledge and demand more transparency. With his presentation, Eamon Bailey is attempting to espouse that a new reality of transparency can be obtained and that now is the time to do it. A new age has dawned with SeeChange.