It's taken me about four months to finish this book, that's not a reflection on the book, more so on my lack of attention span over the last few months. I bought this book at Bangkok Airport while waiting for a flight home, having become more and more intrigued with the power of social media I loved the premise of this book;
"The Circle" is the God of all social media, set in the future it talks about the 'facebook archives' as Facebook no longer exists and The Circle network controls everything online, your payments, social media and even what you ate that day. Quickly becoming one of the most influential networks in the world Mae Holland lands her dream job and is slowly converted into a devout member of The Circle, however the more she becomes involved in the circle, the sooner she realises the truth behind the organisation wanting to take over the world.
As someone who is completely involved in Social Media, the blurb on the back of this book intrigued me. The more and more I read this book the more I got into it, and the more I realised that although many of the ideas in this book are pretty extreme it wouldn't suprise me if some of them did happen in the fututre of social media. The plot develops fairly quickly and the inital introduction of the circle leaves you wanting more and more. 'The Circle' has become the internet, founded by three people coined 'the wise men' it is not only the most used social network, controlling your social media and payments online but at first glance the dream company to work for. With so much money they are able to develop a variety of projects to do with science and exciting projects which would otherwise be impossible. A company that treats the staff well, has amazing prospects with promotions happening within weeks, events and parties with free dorms on the 'campus' to stay in when you can't be bothered to take the journey home. Sounds like the dream company, right?
It's only when you read further into the book and realise how much social media has the ability to take over our lives entirely, the idea of never talking to someone in real life because you can do exactly the same thing over a computer screen, or as minimal human interaction as possible. It's during the middle of the book when Mae goes home and you see the reaction from her ex that you start to realise how much 'The Circle' has taken over the lives of everyone involved in it. There is a section in the book where they are able to develop one of their ideas into a reality, small cameras much like CCTV cameras which have the ability to simply stick to a wall and produce a 24/7 live stream of whatever the camera is looking at. I started to think about this, you'd never be able to go anywhere without knowing if you were being watched. The worst part is the cameras were available to the majority of the population, at $12 people could buy 3/4 and soon almost every part of the world could be covered by these cameras. This is something that potentially could happen, with the right funding and how you you feel being watched 24/7? Safer or just stalked?
From this point on the book gets better and better and the ending is completely unexpected. This is why I enjoyed this book so much, more often than not I'll read a book and before I've even finished the first chapter I'll be able to predict the ending and know exactly what's going on, but this book keeps you guessing.
Whats good about it?
It paints an accurate and very real portrayal of what our world could become. Online and social media have blown up, especially in the last few years and this is a scary insight of what they could become. Nothing is private, everything can e seen by anyone whether you like it or not, Google, Facebook and Twitter no longer exist and the internet is completely controlled by this one super company, the worst thing about this book is that I can see a future like this happening, although hopefully not one so extreme.
What's not so good?
Although intentional, the main character Mae isn't the easiest person to like, most of the time she is annoying as hell. It becomes irritating when she ignores everything and everyone in her life and very little tries to redeem herself. She can't see any wrong in what she is doing and it's only when she goes home to see her family you begin to realise the extent of 'The Circle'
Why Should You Read It?
Ever wondered how powerful the internet and social media is? This sums it up in it's extremeties. This is a futuristic book that not only tells the story of a very plausible future but also a scarily clever documentation of what the world could become.
No comments:
Post a Comment