The Social Network Rated M
The irony at the heart of Facebook is that apparently the world's largest social network was created by a young man so socially awkward he was incapable of holding on to a single friendship. It's a contradiction The Social Network conveys well, while challenging us to consider whether we are more or less friendly than before.
This is a human drama about the doubtful dealings, broken promises and shattered relationships that went into building the world's largest site for online friendships. The Social Network appropriately builds its story around Mark Zuckerberg, the 19 year old who took a fledgling website and transformed it into the most powerful social network of all time. or did he?
Just pause and think for a moment about what that team of programmers really achieved. Was it:
a $25 billion web property?
500 million members in seven years?
a site second only to China and India in population?
All true, but the answer is 'None of the above'. It's too easy to be swamped by the statistics and miss what is truly significant. Mark Zuckerberg and others helped redefine friendship. Thanks in part to Facebook, a generation that grew up online has learned to build relationships on bytes of computer information. Yet it is a sad truth that a person can be part of a thriving internet community and still maintain sufficient distance to be barely known by anyone at all. Facebook has helped create 'friendship lite'.
The Social Network is ultimately a film about that tension: knowing but not really being known. The day that Facebook signs up its millionth member, Zuckerberg loses his best friend. "I was your only friend," his college roommate tells him. "Your only friend." Sitting on top of his silicon tower, Mark might have benefited from some of Jesus' advice: "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world "” yet loses his soul?" Instead he finishes the film refreshing his computer screen, hoping a single person he cares about will 'friend' him on Facebook.
The Social Network shows us what we have lost in the way of friendship. In many cases we have exchanged quality for quantity, when what we hunger for is real concern. Strangely this is what archaic Christianity can offer cutting-edge Facebook: a community that will strive and sacrifice for even its least-known members. Facebook may have topped 500 million but the church consists of many millions of its own who know the truth of that statement.
