The Facebook Effect
In 2009, research was already done on the effect of Facebook on relationships. The report ' More information than you ever wanted: does Facebook bring out the green-eyed monster of jealousy? ' shows that more intensive use of Facebook leads to more jealousy in the partner:
“This effect may be the result of a feedback loop whereby using Facebook exposes people to often ambiguous information about their partner that they may not otherwise have access to and that this new information increases further Facebook use.”
This effect is fully realized in this film. We also see how lonely the main character is in his search for understanding and compassion. This is consistent with the findings of the study ' Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults ', which shows that increased use of Facebook leads to a negative effect on someone's well-being: the more time someone spends on Facebook, the lonelier he is.
And that ties in with the theory in the book 'Alone Together' by MIT professor Sherry Turkle. Russell Clayton, a journalism student at the University of Missouri, even says that his research among 205 Facebook users shows that Facebook has a devastating effect on budding relationships.
The transience of social media
The film Noah was made by Walter Woodman and Patrick Cederberg. Their aim was to give a realistic picture of the way young people use technology. In films you often see people banging on keyboards to squeeze information out of their internet connection, which does not correspond to reality: “Characters slapping the keyboard really fast or Googling weird”.
The gentlemen started shooting the film a year ago. During the production they noticed that the time spent on certain media, which are shown in the film, was already decreasing:
“Probably if we wrote it two months from now there'd be completely different websites saudi arabia mobile phone number list that we'd use. That's just kind of the nature of apps and programs that we run. They have peaks and then they fall off.”
Accelerated change
Once again, this film makes clear how drastically our society has changed in the past few years. Modern life largely takes place on a screen. We are increasingly becoming spectators of our own experiences. The film is not an indictment of the use of all this technology. It is a document of the current zeitgeist.
The film is also a feast of recognition. Messages that keep popping up. Moving from one screen to the other so as not to miss anything that is happening in the digital reality. And when a 'real' conversation takes place via Skype, the boredom is suppressed by watching porn and playing a game...
This story is inspired by the article ' How a relationship dies on Facebook '.