How many of you have your Facebook open in the next tab on your browser? Do you even remember when you joined- did you think it would grow into the huge internet phenomenon it’s become today? How did Facebook even begin? The origins of the popular website are the subject of the highly-anticipated movie, “The Social Network,” which made its box office debut at #1 this weekend.

While many are perplexed as to why a movie about  Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was made while both are alive and doing well, it has been universally praised by movie goers and critics alike. Written by Aaron Sorkin (who wrote The West Wing) and directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), the movie is already being talked about for Oscar nominations. The film has been critically praised for its actors’ performances, especially from Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake.

For example, Manohla Dargis from the New York Times said “When Mr. Eisenberg makes Mark’s face go blank, the character seems scarily emptied out: it’s a subtly great, at times unsettling, performance.”

However, many agree that “The Social Network” has a few shortcomings. For instance, Aaron Sorkin has said that he is ignorant of the internet, and blames it for many of society’s current shortcomings. Therefore, he paints a beautiful picture and tells an amazing story, but didn’t do much research on the “social network” topic of the movie. Also, Sorkin seemed to paint Zuckerberg in a negative light; that he was a stoic, lonely outsider who had only one friend and developed Facebook to get a girl. Lastly, though the movie was loosely based on facts and non-fictional characters, Sorkin admitted that many things were exaggerated, and some were fabricated just for the purpose of the movie.

While the movie has entertainment value, we don’t think that social networks, as well as the Internet-at-large, should be dismissed so effortlessly. With 500 million users (numbers which rival the populations of some continents), social networking has changed the way people interact with each other, and businesses, and has caused the advent of new types of marketing and advertising that were unheard of 20 years ago. We wouldn’t be able to share this blog post with you were it not for the internet and the rise of social media.

Therefore watch videos, engage online, and tweet to your heart’s content- we believe the social media revolution is not going anywhere soon!

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