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Compromising Privacy Privacy is the oxygen filling each and every starving pair of lungs of the almost 6.8 billion cell phone owners worldwide. And as a society, humans have linked every aspect of their daily lives to online profiles with pictures, postings, but even simply being connected risks basic privacy. As New Yorker writer Nick Paumgarten says, “This is the look-at-me age” of the modern globalized world. (Paumgarten 335) Constantly, new innovations link everyday items to the power of the online and social world. It has become standard for people to own a device such as the Amazon Alexa, which records and presents information for its user, always on and listening, but where does this information go? Additionally, Facebook faced recent problems for sharing user’s personal data with companies that wanted to influence the users’ purchases and opinions based on past information collected. Today, anyone can simply view a user’s profile to find out information of their lives. Profiles include job information, school attendance, friends, and local hangouts. Furthermore, hackers can then extort their information and invade the privacy of anyone online. The government can also access this information as well, government security organizations review online sharings and profiles in order to protect the public from threat. But again, where is our information stored? The modern world has become a beautiful mecca where anything can be seen and viewed, people can be found and connected, and globalization seems to benefit the world. Yet, is this costing society of basic privacy rights? In The Circle, by David Eggers, character Mae experiences this similar future with a dystopian twist. But could the advancements we make in social media and online sharing be changing the ethics of privacy all because humans are following a new social and technological norm?

Amazingly, a society centered around civil liberties has become victim to invasion of privacy by their own will to aspire to social virality. Socially, society is taught through our culture the social and technological norms of the modern age. We follow these norms to maintain acceptance from our society and culture, which is exactly what is happening with sharing online and shrinking our privacy. Klosterman argues the internet, “rewards the volume of response more than the merits of whatever people are originally responding to..” (Klosterman 226) Society is pressured to conform and join the world of online sharing, social media, and online social relationships; just as Mae was pressured in The Circle to not just come to work but socially add to her profile constantly. She then distanced herself from family to develop the perfect online life with friends. Western culture has made it something to value out of popular media posts, things that are “trending”, and the amount of “likes” or “followers” a profile has typically. Furthermore, as this was made a value to the “age of look-at-me” people online, people began to share more personal information, increase posting, and make active accounts to conform with standards of society. Mae did just the same over time at The Circle, she began to expand her profile, considered being “active”. She increased sharing posts, personal information, and making sure she shared every event of her life for her “followers”. She only began this behavior after coworkers and peers pressured her into this as crucial for social structure of company culture. This is the same concept idolized by society today in the online world. People in today’s society invade their own rights of privacy in hopes of becoming viral or getting the most “likes” on a post. Our generation is so focused on becoming viral that people take place in risky behavior not only online in over-sharing, but physically in real life with inventions like the GoPro. Although, these cameras are usually used

for innocent fun, they have the opportunity to record criminal activity. Being able to record this criminal activity can potentially stop and provide justice in areas from humanitarian affairs to terrorism and crime. Therefore, privacy in the age of technology is virtually diminishing as society normalizes this social online behaviors. Technology and society have come together to convince people to share information that would gain them the most attention and positive reaction, this strips away privacy standards but conforms to social standards of behavior. Although, this change altered the ethics of privacy for many. This shift also came at a monumental shift for human history. The terror attack against The United States on 9/11 let to a major invasion of privacy. With the Patriot Act it stated, “” (“The USA Patriot Act”) After risk of terror in the world, governments invaded the private lives of the public. The establishment of the National Security Agency crept into social media profiles, telephone calls, and any message someone could ever send. The public wanted to conform, due to the tragedy of the event. This concept changed society’s views and with the explosion and encouragement of social media and online sharing, standards of privacy diminished. This came as the rise and invention of Facebook, the first major social media site came to the public. The site exploded getting everyone wanting to connect online and share. Over time, more and more social media sites like Instagram and Twitter came into the public eye. The concept of “trending” and “popularity” through social validation of the most “likes” and “followers” influenced society. People shared their entire existence online without thought of privacy. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was recently called to appear before Congress to discuss privacy concern in the realm of social media and Facebook. Facebook sold users’ private information to companies designed to target users’ with ads and specific posts. Privacy was invaded and facebook had to account for it. During his

interview with Congress, Zuckerberg could not answer how users’ information was tracked outside the app, how long it takes for users’ data to purge, not updating privacy policies to ask users’ for specific data. (O’Brien Y  urieff, CNN.com) These concern for users’ privacy invasion  and possible abuse of that data is exactly the concept in The Circle. The founders of The Circle corporation exploited the data collected by users’ and Mae discovered the illegality of the situation. Ultimately, privacy is a basic human right. However, modern culture has altered the norms of privacy through social media and online sharing. As society advanced gaining numerous social media outlets, culture encouraged the participation of being connected on these sites. Online, sharing and the possibilities of seeing “trending” or popular posts further encouraged people to increase sharing to fit society’s standard of online socialness. Yet, this standard for our privacy has softened, our comfortability with sharing personal photos and information on online social account has grown. Mae’s character and story in The Circle serve as a warning for the future. If the societal norm grows too blindly value the popularity and activity of online social profiles, this exploitation of of privacy but not only the companies of these sites but whomever they sell users’ information to. As seen in recent developments, only society can protect themselves from their invasion of privacy but controlling their online profiles.

Citation

Barrios, Barclay. Emerging: Contemporary Readings for Writers . 3rd ed., Bedford/St. Martins,

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Eggers, Dave. The Circle . McSweeney's Books , 2013

Klosterman, Chuck. Electric Funeral .

Paumarten, Nick. We Are a Camera .

What Is the USA Patriot Web , www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm....