The internet is a medium of virtually instantaneous and largely unrestrained ideas. Social media has made it possible for people around the world to connect to an extent never previously possible. Its ease of access, among other reasons, has resulted in people using the internet to create relationships through cyberspace, rather than to create them through real-life, face-to-face contact. The human race, however, seems predisposed to engaging in habits which have negative personal consequences, such as becoming dependent on alcohol, drugs, gambling, and now the internet. People have an innate powerful drive to connect to others, and both Dave Eggers in The Circle, as well as Joshua Ferris in To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, highlight the dangers
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Bailey, one of the co-founders of the Circle introduces the company’s newest technology, SeeChange. The SeeChange prototype is a video camera that Mae wears around her neck which records and uploads live to the internet, every word and action which it observes. Bailey contents that only with complete transparency, can the ills of the world be solved. His company will be the vehicle which controls all data associated with humanity becoming transparent, and in the process, benefit from the associated profits from doing so. Bailey says, “all that happens must be known” (Eggers, 71). By creating SeeChange, he exploits a human weakness exposing the dark side of gossip, and the irresistibility of social bonding. It is a weapon in the company’s financial arsenal that feeds upon our insatiable need to know about the lives of others. Furthermore, not only does the company create physical devices such as SeeChange, to exploit man’s inherent addiction to information about others, the company …show more content…
Soon thereafter, Paul becomes inundated with other unsolicited social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and others, also seemingly constructed by the founder of Seir Designs. Paul becomes obsessed with the misrepresentations he finds on “his” business website. Additionally, he is tantalized by the connection that is dangled before him, as a member of an elite, ancient, venerable tribe of people called the Ulms. Before Paul fully succumbed to the lure of technology, as an isolationist, he chose to be disconnected from society. ‘Unlike me, those dentists might find themselves in an engaging conversation or making a connection with an unlikely someone” (page 39). However, later when he fully succumbs to the lure of social media, his disconnection from society is worsened instead of improved. Instead of attending to the needs of his office staff and patients, Paul spends countless hours emailing the creator of “his” website. He comes trapped in the fantasy of belonging to the Ulms, and finding meaning and connection in his life, with his eyes glued to a computer or cell phone screen. Moreover, Paul's addiction to the the internet becomes so severe, he loses his objectivity about its content and joins the masses in believing to be fact, what he reads online about the Ulms. Furthermore, since the various people surfing
Bailey, one of the co-founders of the Circle introduces the company’s newest technology, SeeChange. The SeeChange prototype is a video camera that Mae wears around her neck which records and uploads live to the internet, every word and action which it observes. Bailey contents that only with complete transparency, can the ills of the world be solved. His company will be the vehicle which controls all data associated with humanity becoming transparent, and in the process, benefit from the associated profits from doing so. Bailey says, “all that happens must be known” (Eggers, 71). By creating SeeChange, he exploits a human weakness exposing the dark side of gossip, and the irresistibility of social bonding. It is a weapon in the company’s financial arsenal that feeds upon our insatiable need to know about the lives of others. Furthermore, not only does the company create physical devices such as SeeChange, to exploit man’s inherent addiction to information about others, the company …show more content…
Soon thereafter, Paul becomes inundated with other unsolicited social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and others, also seemingly constructed by the founder of Seir Designs. Paul becomes obsessed with the misrepresentations he finds on “his” business website. Additionally, he is tantalized by the connection that is dangled before him, as a member of an elite, ancient, venerable tribe of people called the Ulms. Before Paul fully succumbed to the lure of technology, as an isolationist, he chose to be disconnected from society. ‘Unlike me, those dentists might find themselves in an engaging conversation or making a connection with an unlikely someone” (page 39). However, later when he fully succumbs to the lure of social media, his disconnection from society is worsened instead of improved. Instead of attending to the needs of his office staff and patients, Paul spends countless hours emailing the creator of “his” website. He comes trapped in the fantasy of belonging to the Ulms, and finding meaning and connection in his life, with his eyes glued to a computer or cell phone screen. Moreover, Paul's addiction to the the internet becomes so severe, he loses his objectivity about its content and joins the masses in believing to be fact, what he reads online about the Ulms. Furthermore, since the various people surfing