In what Way does David Finchers the Social Network Illustrate Contemporary Understandings of Intimacy - Essay Example

?In What Way does David Fincher’s The Social Network Illustrate Contemporary Understandings of Intimacy and Friendship? The Social Network is a good example of what not to do with relationships. The focus of this movie was on Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook. The challenge for Zuckerberg was that he never really had a place to belong. He tried to have friends but they ended up disappointing him in some way and he would seek revenge on them. In most instances, his revenge came in violating their privacy on one of his websites or in his blog. This of course was no way to have a healthy relationship, but relationships were not his primary focus; his primary focus was on creating the best website for social networking in the world. The story basically focused on his relationship with Eduardo Saverin, the then CFO of the business and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twin brothers who gave the idea for Facebook to Zuckerberg (although this was not their initial idea). When looking at the ideas of intimacy and friendship, this movie brought out several issues that are apparent for people today who are engaged in social networking. 1 Intimacy and Relationships Zuckerberg seemed to have difficulty with intimacy because he could only go so far with women before they saw him as a jerk. In the beginning of the movie, the audience sees Zukerberg and his girlfriend Erica talking in one of the campus bars. Erica is there to breakup with him because she says, “being with you is exhausting; it’s like dating a StairMaster”. This was an insult to him but he did not see it as an insult at firs because he was attempting to understand what was happening. Smith (2010) called Zuckerberg a “social autistic” (p. 1) which in many ways she was correct. According to Rudy (2011) some autistic children have not developed social skills and this causes them to have problems with interacting socially. When watching the movie, it was clear that Zuckerberg had problems with interacting with people. Also, they have a tendency not to be able to pick up the subtle cues that people give to each other in face to face conversation. Although this has never been discussed in relation to the real Zuckerberg, there are several websites devoted to people with autism that speculate that he could have Asperger’s Syndrome. Whether this is true or not is not certain, but this could explain why the character in the movie had such challenges. Intimacy is not always easy for many people no matter what their situation and this may be due to Attachment Theory. Dinero et al. (2011) studied the family of origin to understand whether there was a relationship between the family of origin and an individual’s ability to form an intimate relationship. What they found was that if a child had positive attachment interactions wit their parents when they were 15 and 16, that these relationships would help them build attachment security with another person by the time they were 25. They also found that the family of origin and other positive romantic relationships created an ability to have a secure attachment later in life. Intimacy then can be determined by the quality of attachment that an individual has or does not have with their family of origin. Zuckerberg also has problems making and keeping friends. The movie is about the early years of Facebook and it is not known whether he has learned from his mistakes in real life, but it was certain that he did not learn from Dale Carnegie (1936) in terms of how to make friends and keep them. Carnegie suggested that there were three fundamental techniques in handling people: 1) you should not criticize them; 2) you should honestly appreciate them (letting them know this); and 3) you should arouse an eagerness in them for something they want. Although Zuckerberg had many people around him, he constantly criticized or condemned them, never showed them that he appreciated them and never really nurtured those people around him who could have been of great help to him. An example of this is his interactions with Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo gave Zuckerberg $1,000 to get started, and then another $18,000 later on. Unfortunately, he did not see that Zuckerberg really did not appreciate this once he met Sean Parker, another computer whiz. Zuckerberg started out by giving Saverin 30% of the company. Later, he spreads lies about him (saying that he was being cruel to a chicken when he had to take care of a chicken while he was pledging a Greek fraternity), limits his involvement by taking away his stock options and basically treats him poorly once he started working with Parker. Although Zuckerberg is later sued by Saverin, he still seems to do exactly what he wants. The greatest difficulty he had with relationships was with the Winklevoss brothers because they had the original idea for something like Facebook. They called their idea, “The Harvard Connection” but it was only an idea. They were greatly upset with Zuckerberg because he made more money with Facebook, and he led them to believe that he was working on their project, while he was working on his own. In Zuckerberg’s mind it seemed to be a matter of business, but with the Winklevoss brothers, it was a matter of loyalty; these were his college roommates. There are thousands of people who have problems with relationships and many of them attend workshops and seminars about how to develop the characteristics that will bring them good relationships at work and in their personal life. In Zuckerberg’s world, it did not seem that relationships were important to him, which is ironic because Facebook makes relationships with people very important; perhaps this is how he is able to become a part of people’s lives without becoming intimate with them. 2 The Issue of Privacy Privacy is another issue that is addressed several times in the movie and that is very important today. There are so many people who are on the Internet and some do not understand the difference between what they should keep private and what they should put on the Internet. Many people have been ruined because of identify theft and because there were people who could hack into computers that the general public thought were secure, and steal private information. Zuckerberg constantly ignored the privacy of others. As an example, in his first blog called FaceMask he consistently did things to invade people’s privacy. Another example happens with Erica later in the film. He sees her laughing and talking with a group and goes over to talk with her. She does not want to talk to him and he does not understand why. She tells him that he called her a bitch on the Internet and he made fun of her. She makes a profound statement that “The Internet is not pen and pencil; it is written in ink,” letting him know that what he puts on the Internet is there for anyone to read – permanently. Another incident on FaceMask is when he decides to have a contest to say who is “hotter”. He hacks into the Harvard computer and pulls pictures of people and places them side by side. He asks the campus to vote on who is “hottest.” He did this as something to do and it becomes hurtful to many people. He eventually apologizes but he has taken people’s digital identify and placed it on the Internet for everyone to see. What he does not realize is that this information goes beyond Harvard to the global network. The site was so popular that it eventually was taken down by Harvard because it threatened to crash their server. Today, although there are thousands of sites that tell people to be cautious about what they post on the Internet, some people still use it as a forum for saying and doing anything they want. As an example, Nussbaum (2007) reported on several young people who were posting nude photos of themselves on their websites. One of the issues that Nussbaum points out is that there is a new generation of adults who have no shame and they do not feel that they need to hide anything about themselves. She also points out that the Internet has taken away people’s ability to talk to one another in person. Hodgkinson (2008) adds to this discussion because he believes that social medial (and particularly Facebook) is disconnecting people rather than brining them together. He states that Facebook “appeals to a kind of vanity and self-importance in us …” (p.1). Because people think that anything is safe, this can lead to people putting information into an environment that has the illusion of safety. However, many people believe that they are only talking to their friends and family and that this is safe. Andrejevic (2002) brings in another issue that Facebook is using today. He states that the online economy has as its goal “to replace mass marketing and production with customized programming, products, and marketing” (p. 237). If you are an average individual who participates on Facebook today, you will see that there are a variety of ads that show up on your home page that are things that you may like. This is Zukerberg’s attempt to help consumers and businesses connect with each other. This allows everyone to think that they are getting customized products and that the marketing is going specifically to that cause. As an example, if an individual clicks on the “like” button, they are going to see a lot of advertising for products and services that are similar to the one item that they said they liked. Some of these will be interesting and some will not but the point is that media is there and in a sense it is invading your privacy. Boyd (2010) states that “privacy is about having control over how information flows” (p. 2). If this is the case, then it is very important that people understand how their information flows from one place to another. People must understand that social settings that they are in may or may not be safe to put out all types of information about themselves. What is interesting is that no matter what social media site people have been on, there are problems with privacy at one time or other. As an example, Google launched a public service inside one of their private services ad complicated the situation. They received bad publicity about it until they fixed it (Boyd, 2010). However, Google is a household name and people really did not stop using Google because of the controversy. 3 Conclusion Social networking will not go away and many years after the movie, Zukerberg is cited as the youngest billionaire by many magazines that include Time, Fast Company and Forbes. There have been many articles written about him and people continue to use Facebook. There are subtle changes that appear on Facebook – some are good while others seem to make things more complicated – but one thing is clear: Facebook is here to stay along with many other social networking sites. Unfortunately, these sites do make it possible for people to ignore each other, to treat each other badly and to stay in touch with each other easier than making a phone call once a week. When it comes to privacy and intimacy, social networking has stopped this from being an issue. People can be as private or intimate as they want to be to a point, but it is all couched in degrees of inauthenticity which means that people really do not know each other at all. Instead, they know whatever the individual wants them to see and the illusion can be worse than the real deal. References Andrejevic, M. (2002). ‘The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 19, (2) 30-248 Boyd, D. (13 March 2010). ‘Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity’, SXSW. Austin, Texas, March 13, 2010: http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/SXSW2010.html [Accessed 27 August 2011]. Dale Carnegie, Selections from ‘Six Ways To Make People Like You’, in How to Win Friends and Influence People (Revised edition) Eden, North Ryde, 1988; [Original publication 1936]. Dinero, R. E., Conger, R. D., Shaver, P. R., Widaman, K. F., & Larsen-Rife, D. (2011). Influence of family of origin and adult romantic partners on romantic attachment security. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 116-30. doi:10.1037/2160-4096.1.S.16 Hodgkinson, T. (14 January 2008). “With friends like these …” the Guardian. Available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook [Accessed 27 August 2011]. Nussbaum, E. (24-5 March 2007). ‘Kids, the Internet and the End of Privacy’, The Weekend AustralianMagazine. Available from http://nymag.com/news/features/27341/ [Accessed 28 August 2011]. Rudy, L.J. (18 August, 2007). Social Skills Training and Autism: The Basics. About.com. Available from http://autism.about.com/od/autismtherapy101/a/socskillbasics.htm [Accessed 28 August 2011] Smith, Z. (25 November 2010). ‘Generation Why?’ The New York Review of Books. Available from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/25/generation-why/ [Accessed 28 August 2011). Read More