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Gene Skiba

Mrs. Gagne

Practical Writing

18 March 2022

The Circle Essay

The Circle is a science fiction movie about the development of technology. The movie

shows how the new technology has some very positive uses. However, people lose a lot of

privacy and start to make their job and social media their life. We get to watch Mae Holland

transform from her country lifestile, to a circle member.

At first when Mae gets her job she treats it like it is a normal job, but after she misses

some parties she is confronted by two circle members. They help Mae set up her social media

account and seem to imply that she almost needs to come to the optional parties they throw. After

the encounter Mae starts to be on social media more and does not come home for a long time.

She gets wrapped up in work and social media and makes her whole life about it. Mae eventually

goes transparent, which means she is livestreaming all day. Mae’s parents and Mercer are not

like her at all. They want privacy and do not want to be wrapped up in social media.

The movie is definitely portraying technology in a negative light. It shows how

technology is very good, but we still need our privacy because we all are human and make

mistakes. It kind of reminds me of cancel culture today. Sometimes I think it is good that people

are canceled because they are not good people. However, when someone is cancelled for saying

something like 20 years ago or doing something that offended someone, I think it is dumb.

Mercer got in trouble for killing deer to make his chandaleir. When he did not kill a deer and

even if he wanted to he could kill a deer.

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The moral of the story to me was technology can be good for some poeple, but others do

not want anything to do with it. The members at the circle loved technology and made it their

whole life and that is fine if they want that. However there is other people who do not want

technology and instead of forcing them to use it you should just let them do what they want to

do.

I definitely think our society will eventually get as technologically advanced as it is in the

movie. I also would be willing to bet some people are going to be pushing the technology on to

some people that do not want it. I hope that we can not develop live cameras that are that small

anytime when I am alive. It would definetly help with crime and holding people accountable

when nobody is watching, but the privacy tradeoff is not worth it to me.

I think some of the digital presence we use today was in the movie. They made social

media accounts and posted pictures on it. They also made a bio telling a little bit about yourself a

lot like we do today. I think it tells you not to hide bad things from your employees in the future.

If you hide bad things from them eventually you will most likely be caught. You should also hold

yourself accountable even when you think nobody is around you.

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Work Cited

The Circle. Directed by James Ponsoldt, performances by Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, and John

Boyega, 1978 Films, 2017