Exposing a generational divide
By Tom Brady (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-11 09:04
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Facebook's global march to dominance (500 million users and counting) in online social networks is ndisputed. "The Social Network," the film based on its founding at Harvard University in 2003, appears to be on its way to becoming a cultural touchstone as well. One's perspective on the film, and the utility of making friends on the Web, is age sensitive.
"When you talk to people afterward, it was as if they were seeing two different films," Scott Rudin, one of the producers, told The Times. Commenting on the film's portrayal of Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Rudin said: "The older audiences see Zuckerberg as a tragic figure who comes out of the film with less of himself than when he went in, while young people see him as completely enhanced, a rock star, who did what he needed to do to protect the thing that he had created."
The film, which opened in the United States on October 1 and will be released around the world later this month, paints a rather unflattering and, some point out, fictional portrait of Mr. Zuckerberg.
"I was asked by older people again and again how I could play a character who is capable of being so mean," Jesse Eisenberg, the actor who portrayed Mr. Zuckerberg, told The Times. "But young people never had that reaction. They kept saying, 'This guy was a genius. Look what he has created.'
"For a lot of people my age" - Mr. Eisenberg is 26, the same age as Mr. Zuckerberg - "the message is that technology allows you to create something that can change things from a single computer," he added. "You don't need a secretary, you don't need an office building and you don't need employees."
And you may not need friends, either.
A.O. Scott, reviewing the film in The Times, called the mood of "The Social Network" "dark, sinister and paranoid," a sharp contrast to the sunny community the company likes to project. The film version of Mr. Zuckerberg also embodies "the paradox of a deep loneliness in a world of friendship," Mr. Scott writes, because he "does not really understand how to make friends."
The generational divide the film exposes also reflects how willing younger people are to share personal information on the Web, while older people tend to be more reserved online.
And privacy has been one arena where Facebook has stumbled, angering its users. Mr. Zuckerberg's closest adviser and Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has admitted the missteps. Some critics complain it's more than the confusion that Facebook's privacy settings have generated.
They say the company collects a trove of personal information from users to help marketers fine-tune their messages.
"I fear that Ms. Sandberg is failing to provide the adult supervision that Facebook requires," Jeff Chester, executive director of a digital advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., told The Times. "Facebook's direction regarding its use of its member data, and the viral and largely stealth marketing practices it endorses, is very disturbing."
By most accounts, Mr. Zuckerberg believes in his mission to build an open Internet, where personal information is transparent and relationships are on display, though he is described as wary and private. Now that some less flattering moments from his younger years are on display, he professes to have learned his lesson.
As he said in one interview: "If you're going to go on to build a service that is influential and that a lot of people rely on, then you need to be mature, right?"
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