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Louis Gruber

Practical writing

Mrs. Gagne

19 October 2021

The Circle Privacy and Technology Usage Analysis Essay

While we watched The Circle there were elements in the movie that were extremely

common in today’s society, and things that could easily happen in the near future. Social media

and technology has an influence on the characters in film. The film can also teach the viewers a

moral lesson on the power of technology. It is also important to think about what we can do to

make sure our future does not end up like the film.

The film was a lot like today’s society because of the use of social media. The characters

communicate via social media and their jobs at the circle are based off of social media functions.

In the movie it is also a popularity contest just like it is in real life. The amount of followers you

have is symbolic in today’s society as well as in the movie. As the movie progressed the uses of

social media progressed also. It started out just like we have it today with the messaging and

posting. Towards the end of the movie it evolved into complete transparency of everyone’s life.

If we are not careful, this could happen to us also.

Social media can influence people and we see how it influenced the characters in The

Circle. The characters in the movie become so focused on their online impression that it seems

like their only job. Mae was taken back at first at the idea of investing so much time into social

media, but she changed her opinion as she used it. She started communicating with her

coworkers and enjoyed becoming more and more popular. She got so focused on gaining

followers and becoming famous that it started to affect the people around her. Mae’s parents got
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exposed because the circle company put cameras in their house. They had no privacy, and that

made them upset and negatively impacted their life. Her friend Mercer got hate for making his

antler chandeliers and he could not get away from it. Social media ended up wrecking his and

Mae’s friendship and was a contributor to his death. I think this part of the film shows the

viewers the massive impact social media can have. The moral lesson that viewers can take away

from the film is to always think about the impact things you put on social media can have on the

people around you.

The Circle is a representation of what happens when technology goes too far. To make

sure that we never get to that point there needs to be boundaries and laws that are set to protect

people’s privacy. I think it would be a violation of people’s privacy to put cameras everywhere

like in the movie. If one company runs all of the technology like in the movie, there will likely

be some corruptness because it has too much power. We already see some of that starting with

the online cookies, and ads popping up about something you and your friend were just talking

about.

In conclusion, there are ways that The Circle looked like today’s society and showed

what the world could look like in the near future. We see how social media impacts the

characters in the film, and the moral lesson that the film can teach the audience about the power

of technology. Finally, we can take the lessons learned from the film and use them to make sure

our society does not end up like it did in The Circle.

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Works Cited

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

Boyega, 1978 Films, April 28, 2021.