Describing a relationship between data and intimacy (which I intend to do) relies heavily on the individuals interpretation. Intimacy in pretty straight forward but data is very broad and can be taken to mean different things. For the purpose of this response I will think of data first as numerical values and statistics as they relate to online interaction in The Circle. The other way I will think of data would be as it relates to any information created or stored digitally, whether it be purposely put in a public and online forum or saved on one’s personal device(s).

We see a few key instances in this section of The Circle in which data and intimacy come into direct conflict. The first is when Francis volunteers for the LuvLuv showcase and uses Mae as his example. Mae sits in the audience, horrified, as she witnesses loads of data about her compiled and sorted before her (and nearly everyone else at The Circle’s) eyes. The purpose of analyzing this data was so that Francis could learn more about Mae in order to more efficiently become intimate with her, but instead the opposite takes place and Mae wants nothing to do with him. The use of data, and the idea of mechanizing something like dating and love, actually repels Mae from any intimacy that it was trying to create. At this moment, Mae is on this side of the relationship, but as she develops as a character she ends up assuming Francis’ role more and more often.

Again we see this conflict when Mae goes back home under the pretense of an emergency with her father but finds everything has gone back to normal, thanks in large part to the assistance her parents received from her ex-boyfriend, Mercer. Mae thinks that she is up-to-date with the details of Mercer’s life because of that data she finds online, in the form of his website and comments from other people. Even after he explicitly asks her to talk to him rather than read about him on the internet, Mae cannot help but see what data has been compiled on him, and make judgments based on it. Mercer is supposed to be one of Mae’s oldest friends (or, at the very least, they have a lot of history), and it should have been easy for them to have a level of intimacy beyond that of most other people. Instead, Mae seems incredibly distant and detached because she is substituting her knowledge of online data for personal intimacy.

The final instance where we see data and intimacy converge is when Mae is encouraged, or rather forced, into paying more attention to her PartiRank. Mae spends nine hours online in order to increase her ranking, but this is done by sending smiles, zinging on trending topics, following feeds, or generally accumulating more data online. The idea that someone’s participation can be quantified using numerical data is, frankly, astounding to me. The obvious paradox here would be that as Mae “participates” more by getting objectively more involved, she is actually participating less because she cannot devote her attention to anything long enough to make it meaningful. In other words, as Mae submits to more data she becomes less intimate with the sources of this data and therefore her involvement becomes somewhat meaningless.

This is the general theme of the relationship between data and intimacy. Both in The Circle and in real life, reading and interpreting data online cannot substitute for real human interaction and the resulting intimate relationships. The problem becomes especially intense when people fall into the belief that sharing their lives online through many status updates, posted pictures, and shared topics of interest yields the same kind of friendships that they can achieve if they take the time to focus their efforts into a lesser quantity but higher quality kind of “real” friendships.

After reading the “intro” section of The Circle, it is hard to avoid the obvious parallels present between what is being set up in the book and what is going on with my life as a new Penn Stater. As Mae tries to acclimate herself within a 10,000-person community, figuring out what her role is and what she can do to start her new job the right way, I realize that I am going through many of the same things (albeit with a slightly larger community).

Both The Circle’s and Penn State’s communities could be described aptly as being very closely knit, especially considering their immense sizes. Along with the closeness within both places comes the fact that both communities are very self-contained. In context this means that apart from a few (and usually esteemed) visitors, the people that I interact with are almost always Penn Staters, whether it be in the form of students, faculty, employees, or simply fans. The thing that binds us together is the fact that we share a few common characteristics and ideals that Penn State embodies. The same could be said with the people who work at The Circle, especially considering the amount of effort the company puts in to give its employees good reasons to spend more time on campus, such as throwing parties for social gatherings, or building things such as a movie theater or even apartments for the employees to sleep in. The sense of community developed at both Penn State and The Circle is a huge deal when considering the way “newbies” are brought into it. In fact, I think that the greatest expectation from either institution is that everyone takes an active role in their respective community. New members are brought in and quickly encouraged to get involved in various organizations or groups within the community, allowing them to add to its overall dynamic.

Something else worth noting is the amount of pleasure both The Circle and Penn State take in displaying their large and diverse populations. They stress that a more diverse body of people leads to the creation of a space where a greater number of thoughts and ideas can be passed around and developed. This reflects the idea that both institutions believe that they are prestigious and hold a prominent status as a top ranked company and university, respectively. For if they are truly a prominent force in their fields they will attract these types of people and generate these types of groundbreaking ideas. This source of pride is evident in The Circle when Mae recalls her parents’ utter excitement when they found out she would be working there. For me, I discovered this pride when the statistics on diversity, achievement, and points of pride were repeated whenever I came to campus (i.e. accepted student’s day, new student orientation, or the various activities during welcome week).