The Social Network reflection

The Social Network described the story of how Mark Zuckerberg established the well-known social website Facebook. It proceeds in narration interspersed with flashbacks, depicting the process of founding Facebook and the lawsuit after Facebook going viral. With the development of the plots, we can see the how Mark Zuckerberg's social connection deteriorates as Facebook, which aims to improve people's social network, becomes more successful.

I think this film reveals the characteristics of new media by using Facebook as an example. Facebook represents a brand new and original method for people to communicate. As Manovich describes in his book, the revolution of new media influences a variety of communication. With Facebook, people can communicate with each other in multiple ways, which boosts the distribution of this social website. In the film, Winklewoss brothers did not notice such speed of distribution until Facebook going worldwide. The new media brought people much convenience and people are easily accessible to it with computers. In the film, Mark Zuckerberg's behavior is condemned since he "stole" the idea the social website and fired his best friend. However, I think this is exactly why Mark Zuckerberg succeeded. Even though Winklewoss brothers came up with the idea, they did not start doing so immediately. They were busy with their school life and sailboat race. If Mark Zuckerberg did not initiate the construction of Facebook, this idea would be taken by someone else since they were at the starting period of Internet and computer. There were many ideas about the digital era at that time. Mark Zuckerberg successfully caught such opportunity thus he deserves the success of Facebook. Also, Mark Zuckerberg made the correct decision to collaborate with Sean Parker. If he only relied on his best friend, Facebook might collapse due to the shortage in funds. Such "cruelty" is also the key for Mark Zuckerberg to succeed.