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Book Review: ⭕The Circle
The Circle by Dave Eggers (Fiction)
Don’t be put off by the lousy movie adaptation of The Circle (16% on Rotten Tomatoes despite a cast that includes Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, Karen Gillan, John Boyega). The Circle is a page-turner, especially for those who have been following the rise of social media and its influence on our culture and lives. While not technical, this book does an excellent job of educating the reader on the techniques these large firms deploy to make us click, buy, and like.
The story is set at a large social media company (The Circle, aka Facebook in disguise) where a young woman, Mae Holland, goes to work. As she learns more about how The Circle manipulates people, uses their data, and The Circle’s plan for global dominance in everyone’s life, we are led to believe that we see a revolution starting to foment in Mae’s mind. But perhaps she has a different plan…..
The Circle also does an excellent job of illustrating and making fun of the gravity that we give to our opinions on social media and the possibility that we are doing anything that matters by being on these platforms; platforms like Facebook certainly want us to think our time spend it is important! Consider the following passages:
And, with the tools the Circle made available, Mae felt able to influence global events, to…
