Film Analysis: The Facebook Obsession

Improved Essays
The Facebook Obsession is an hour-long documentary produced by CNBC, focusing on the story of Facebook from 2004 until the film’s production in 2010. The documentary is narrated by Lester Holt and features various stories from everyday users of Facebook. The film also showcases the story and struggle of how Facebook evolved into what it is today. The driving force behind all these stories is to illustrate to the viewer the impact Facebook had on the public, and how the “Obsession” had spread like wildfire in the 6 short years it was available to the public. In this documentary, the filmmakers do not follow a linear beginning to end storyline to tell Facebook’s story. Instead, it jumps back and forth between several user’s stories of how Facebook has affected their lives for better or for worse. Just after the introduction, we are whisked off to a small town, where a woman in her early twenties is on a quest to find her biological mother. The viewer is shown the heartwarming story of how, through the power of Facebook, she has reconnected with her mother for the first time since birth. Not long after we are left with a rather positive view of the capabilities of Facebook, we are shown how police departments across the nation are using it as a tool to catch suspects from various degrees of crimes by going through what is public on people 's Facebook feed. This for me was the most influential examples of what Facebook is capable of in the film. For me, it hit right at home as I often believe my privacy can be encroached upon by anyone with access to the internet. I agree with the woman in the film that argued that her information was being used more as a marketing tool first and foremost, rather than a way to connect with friends. The message of skepticism towards Facebook could be felt throughout the film. If one had to guess solely from the title what the point of the film was, one would speculate that based off the word “obsession” and its negative connotation, the documentary was conveying a slightly more negative message. To sum the film up in a few words, the filmmakers were trying to get across the message: “Look at how much power Facebook has should any company be able to have this influence over so many?” With this message in mind, I believe its target audience were those who have not yet got on the Facebook bandwagon, in addition to those who are already on Facebook and have thought of leaving. The filmmakers make points for both sides, but ultimately, it’s …show more content…
The Social Network (2010) was the movie featured in the documentary, and its’ stars briefly talked about the story of the film and how it related to reality. We then were shown Zuckerberg, who was quick to quip back, stating that the story was just an exaggeration of what really happened, nothing close to real life. Beyond bringing in a few of Zuckerberg’s friends to attest to his character, we don’t get to see anything from before Zuckerberg’s college years. The film doesn’t do a great job at analyzing any detail of Zuckerberg’s childhood, making it hard to understand the full story. We don’t know anything about what made him the incredibly socially awkward kid who developed the largest social network in the

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Scott Brown, a columnist and theater critic, in his essay “Facebook Friendonomics,” argues that the interconnectedness of people through social media has disrupted the natural process of friendship. He supports the claim by first referencing personal experience with Facebook to demonstrate his understanding of friendship dynamics within social media, incorporating humor with unexpected comparisons and analogies, and finally directly asserting his claim by clearly listing his three grievances against social media. Brown’s purpose is to argue that friendships should decay naturally rather than be unnecessarily perpetuated by a connection through social media in order to encourage people to explore relationships without relying on superficial…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    After writing mostly about the bad aspects of Facebook, Marche tells us that it is not just the fault of the people who invented social media sites, it is also mostly our fault as well. Moira Burke, a recent graduate student “…concluded that the effect of Facebook depends on what we bring to it.” (pg.10). Social media sites were intended to bring people together, but it has caused us to grow farther apart.…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Furthermore, everything within Facebook is reduced to the size of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, a sophomore at Harvard from a suburban neighborhood. But people are much different from Mark and if that possibility of being secure with others differences was created within a platform like a Facebook it would be more useful. In Stop Googling. Let’s Talk, we agreed that society is becoming heavily dependent on technology that it is oblivious to its deficiencies. Human beings are social beings and our interactions with others make up most of our life…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The films that I’m focusing on for class were Winter’s Bone and The Social Network. The topic that I’m focusing on is how even though the main characters of these films are relatively the same age and they both come across problems throughout but Mark is much more capable of accessing his resources so he’s able to overcome the obstacles. This problem appears in life all around us also. People are faced with challenges in all types of social classes but the people with more money and resources are able to overcome them in an easier way compared to people living in poverty. Also another theme that comes up in these movies is gender roles, and that people look at them differently will treat Mark and Ree in different manners based on their sex.…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The show, shows how people in today’s society, frequent who tends to date online on the popular social media website called “Facebook”. These people young or older, create relationships with people. Also usually the people on the other end who their investigating to see if there who they say they are, are more than likely not who they say they are. These people tend to be much older than the other. Believe it or not, these people could be the opposite sex their trying to be.…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Lucy P. Marcus Connection

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In this article, the author wants us to know how it is easy to get involved with Facebook nowadays. The evidence says that people spend hours and hours on it, doing nothing special. The writer once forgets to attend an important event because he was feeling Facebook is more important, like a job. He wants us to know how people have forgotten about the day today's life in order to spend more time on social media. In this article, his audience must be the people, who spend more time with social media instead of family and work.…

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Recently, many people are debating on whether social media benefits a person or not because of health issues and possible online predators, but with its increasing popularity, technology inhibits an ability to connect groups of people, spread news in a matter of seconds, and aid in education, making it a gain for individuals across the world. When Facebook was created in 2004, a tsunami of people used this new website. It allowed people to interact and reconnect with their friends…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Zuckerberg then began creating Facebook, a website where people post “not just pictures, but also profiles. Where they’d grown up, how old they were, what they were interested in. What they were looking for online.” (Mezrich chapter…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely”, Stephen Marche discusses the effects and utility of network in people’s life. Marche establishes how Facebook is making us more isolated and replacing deep connections from society. He also demonstrated that isolation is an option in which we are blinded pushed towards by social networking. As stated by Marche, the things that you post in Facebook are a reflection of yourself.…

    • 1112 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Great Forgetting” by Nicholas Carr and “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” by Stephen Marche tell stories of how technology can be great but there are some under lying aspects which can make it detrimental. Carr writes about how technology can cause some catastrophic events if it malfunctions and our reliance on it has made us observers instead of participants which is causing a decline in our ability to perform tasks. Marche talks about the benefits and drawbacks of using Facebook. He suggests that social media has potential flaws by affecting some people’s physical and psychological wellbeing, but does also have some positive aspects.…

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Question 1 (Film Summary): The Social Network showcases the invention and development of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg drunkenly starts a website (FaceMash), comparing and rating girls. He is punished with 6 months of academic probation, after crashing Harvard’s network due to FaceMash becoming so popular overnight. He is then recruited by the Winklevoss twins and their business partner, Divya Narendra, as a programmer on their site, Harvard Connection.…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    But when comparing our own circumstances against that of Facebook, we become our own worst enemy – as the digital persona portrayed on this social network only highlights the ‘best bits’ from our short Facebook timeline, in stark contrast to our entire life’s work. Need any more proof on just how damaging social media can be? Look to DoSomething.org, America’s largest not-for-profit for the younger generation and social change. Its 9 Ways Technology Affects Mental Health article brings to light several afflictions social media has on mental health, including depression, isolation, insecurity and more recently, FOMO, also known as “Fear Of Missing Out.”…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Facebook is a popular social media website wherein people gather and exchange ideas,…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010) Bradley Jackson Contents Summary 2 Management and Leadership 3 Conflict Management 4 Professionalism and Ethics 5 Conclusion 6 Reference List 7 Summary The Social Network is an American drama film directed by David Fincher. The 2010 film covers the life story of the world’s youngest billionaire, the CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg… The title, “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”, outlines the process of how Facebook, became the multi-billion dollar network, which it is today. There is evidence from the title “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”, to suggest that Mr Zuckerberg did not have an easy road to success.…

    • 1844 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Media can come in various forms such as internet, radio, newspapers, magazines, and books. One huge aspect of media that has been incorporated into today’s world is social media. Before social media, one message could have taken weeks to be relayed however, in today’s world we have social media that allows us to get our messages across in a matter of seconds. One of the most prominent social media websites in today’s world is Facebook.…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays