THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Kathleen and I saw "The Social Network," the new movie about the origins of Facebook last night. While I have not seen many of the presumptive Oscar nominees, I can safely say that there will not be a more compelling and contemporary film shown this year.

The movie is fictionalized, but it is based largely on facts/interviews with the major players. We will never know for certain what motivated Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, on so many occasions in the film, which is part of the film's charm. Some see Zuckerberg as a social misfit merely seeking to best all those who have wronged him or made him to feel unwelcome, but this is a superficial analysis.

While Zuckerberg clearly appears to have some difficulty relating to people, it is clear that he understands the power of relationships and how to capitalize on our desire to "relate" to people. If he did not, there would not be half a billion Facebook users.

The film made me as a former Facebook user (I quit after one year), think about what that site means. For me, it is an invention of the electronic age that makes it acceptable to be boastful, malicious, audacious, and downright juvenile. While people have always demonstrated these traits, Facebook gives the ordinary person a voice onstage with a megaphone. Fundamentally, most humans crave this. They need to be heard, and they are heard loud and clear day in and day out on Facebook. In that way, they want exactly what Zuckerberg may have wanted when he made the site.

This brings me to my final point. If everyone is yelling what they want whenever they want, when does all of this cease to be music and become noise? I found that I liked the people with whom I was "friends" less and less with every status update, every comment, and every tagged photo. It was not so much over-exposure to these individuals as underexposure to anything resembling a real and deep connection that made me leave. In he end, I wanted my real friends back (most of whom were not members) rather than my "friends."

In many ways, I think Facebook makes its users forget what real friendship is and that "seeing" your friends everyday does not compare with being with your friends... even if your contacts are only through email, phone calls, or face-to-face connections once every decade. I, for one, will take friendships over social networks any day.

Consider this shared.