Last week I went to see “The Social Network”, which, despite the fact that it sounds like it was named by someone who was given 30 seconds to come up with a name, was a great movie.  The movie is about the founding of Facebook, but since the actual invention of software and websites is extremely boring and the actual people involved in creating the company are mediocre-looking nerds, the movie was a necessarily trumped-up version of events that made the story far sexier and more interesting than it was.  The only part of the story’s telling to which I took offense was the way it grossly-romanticized Harvard by making its undergraduate women seem attractive, and by making the party scene at its pathetic “Final Clubs” look like Ibiza.  Those small caveats aside, it very cleverly told the story about how Mark Zuckerberg and some combination of other less-intelligent students founded a company that now has 500 million users and is more valuable than France.

For me, the movie was especially interesting because I don’t use Facebook and think it’s inherently stupid.  I think it’s stupid because even though I like my friends, I don’t give a crap what kind of mood they are in at any given moment, and I don’t care that they excited about going out to dinner or to the beach, and I really don’t need to see 1,400 pictures of them at somebody’s wedding I’ve never met.  Most importantly, I am 100% certain nobody gives a crap about what I'm doing at every moment.

Some people swear by Facebook as the best way to “catch up with friends they haven’t talked to in 15 years”.  My gut reaction, like everyone else’s is that Facebook is useful for this reason, but just before I get sentimental about the possibility of reuniting with various childhood acquaintances and former coworkers, I remember that unless you have been a prisoner of war, anyone you haven’t talked to in 5 years or more is by definition, a non-friend. 

Eighteen months ago I had my ten-year reunion from high school.  It was wonderful to see my classmates, and nice to find out how all of them were doing, but it is not an accident that since the reunion I’ve stayed in touch with exactly the same number of people I stayed in touch with before the reunion.  If I’d been on Facebook, I might know more things about them, and might have tried to stay in touch for a few months, but eventually the lack of chemistry that led us not to speak for ten years would reenter the picture and we’d be right back where we started.

In the movie’s most telling scene, Zuckerberg, the company’s founder, explains the epiphany he’s had that caused him to invent the site.  He remarks to his friend that although the power of the internet allows users to spend their time looking at distant civilizations or learning a new skill, what they most want to do is go on the vast information superhighway when they are half drunk after a party and look at pictures of their friends, and themselves, usually from the party they were just at.  It is beyond ironic that Facebook, the product or service used more widely throughout the globe than any other, is primarily a means of connecting people who already know one another so they can send each other pictures of themselves wearing cocktail dresses. 

What Zuckerberg realized was that humans aren’t really ready for a truly interconnected world, or at least if they are, they aren’t willing to explore it until they’ve made sure to tell all of their friends about their new handbag, and made sure to comment on some pictures of their friend’s Halloween costume or white water rafting trip so they won’t be offended.  Facebook’s motto is to “make the world more open and connected” and while I appreciate the idealism, one assumes Zuckerberg can’t be naïve enough to think he’s done anything but create a goldmine by being the first to harness and monetize the vanity and insecurity all humans have in common.

I’m willing to concede the brilliance of the site but think it’s a stretch to suggest it's going to change the world or transform Iran or North Korea into free and open societies.  If we’re being honest, if Facebook were allowed in Iran it would do about what it does in the US, which is make it considerably easier for guys in Tehran to look up the cute girl they met while stoning political dissidents.   As it relates to the movie, however, America should be glad its less-enlightened foes won’t allow it to be shown, because the last thing we need is Ahmadinejad learning the art of propaganda from “The Social Network’s “portrayal of Harvard.