How often should we be online?

As The Circle continues, we begin to see Mae and how she changes and starts to redefine things in her life.  As said by Mercer, Mae is becoming boring, and cannot distinguish between real and simulated life. She is getting lost in the culture and lifestyle of the Circle, without even realizing it. There is a difference between experiencing the event, like kayaking, and then just videotaping and photographing the whole thing, without actually being there in the moment. When she helps Mercer with his business by posting his work online, he is offended because not everyone is as online as Mae is. This leads Mae to get angry with Mercer once she's alone, and she thinks vile and cruel things about him, calling him "an ugly, ever-sweating moose man" and completely misunderstanding his point (264). Her anger towards him is a sign of her changing, in a way that makes her have tunnel vision instead of focusing on other things. When she visits her parents, she is completely distracted by her phone and all thats on it, and this also leads to her anger towards Mercer.

But on the other hand, Mae is keeping in touch with reality more than most. She went out on a limb and kayaked when the place was closed, and was just out there at night with nature. She also has a relationship with Kalden, who is mysterious and has some slightly controversial views about the Circle and things that they do. She questions a lot of what Eamon Bailey has to say regarding privacy and honesty, until she has an "awakening" and says things like "privacy is theft, secrets are lies, and sharing is caring" (305). Although she was engaged on her phone for part of the dinner, she leaves the Circle campus to go eat dinner with her parents, even though it seems to be looked down on to leave the campus for any reason.

In today's social media culture, I do think that we can see some of the same things happened that happen in the Circle. People are willing to put a lot of information online, and whether thats a good or bad thing, who knows. People are also on their social media accounts so much that it interferes with their real lives, and real interactions with people day to day. When something happens, everyone videotapes it instead o being there. At concerts all you an see are phones in the air capturing every single moment instead of listening to the music and watching it with your own eyes. We follow some people all day everyday, like the Kardashians, on every social media, including television, similar to "going transparent" at the Circle.