Social Network and loneliness

Last night, after watching the All Blacks beat England with a try in the 78th minute of the game, an unexpectedly close shave, I watched the film Social Network. As followers of movies would know, it is about Mark Zuckerberg and how he developed Facebook almost accidentally. All he wanted to do, according the film, disputed by Zuckerberg, is to impress the elite fraternity clubs, and list the girls in the Harvard dorms with an evaluation of their looks. One thing lead to another, the network was expanded from Harvard to other top universities, then it took off. In no time the site had over a million hits, and by the time Zuckerberg was 23 he was a billionaire. It was a good, amusing film, and in passing it asked some searching questions. What was, what is, the huge appeal of Facebook? The girls (and the boys) at Harvard came from all over the United States, and indeed,.from all over the world. They didn't have the support network that living on a community would have provided. They had to establish who they were, something they never had to do in the communities they came from. Everybody knew them, knew their families, knew their skills, interests, individuality.  On Facebook they could define who they were, and share this with the rest of the world, tell people equally rootless, that they exist, that they have an identity. With families and friends scattered, people seek like-minded companionship in cyberspace. Any flippant, throw away comment or opinion would do as long as there is someone out there in cyberspace who might read it.