The Social Network
Ahh, blogging has been on the back burner for a while and I apologize.
*Side note*- One thing I seriously underestimated about moving to the upper grades was the amount of reading I need to be doing! I want to keep up with the books 10-11 year olds enjoy so I can recommend books to them, but man... they're a bit longer than the pictures books I have surrounded myself with for so long. I do owe a great big thanks to tween authors of today though, you've drastically improved your craft since my tween days.
The most interesting part to me was the idea that a person who is brilliant beyond belief can invent something such as Facebook and become a billionaire by the age of 26. Wow. I'm torn with this information though. On one hand, it's brilliant. If you are intelligent enough to create a social network, such as Facebook, without as much as one tiny glitch you probably deserve a hefty paycheck, right? But at the same time, doesn't it make you want to go into the age old rant sounding something like this, "whatever happened to good 'ol fashioned working your way to the top?" While I really can't come to a settling conclusion to this argument, I will say this movie accurately depicts the current state of the job market: it looks nothing like it did 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago, therefore everything we know about job preparation and 'qualifying skills' is changing every single day, therefore what we knew last week may be irrelevant today. This is staggering to me.
Case in point, when Mark and Facebook reached their millionth user, they celebrated and he made himself a business card. The business card said his name underneath his business slogan: I'm CEO B**CH. Hmmm, I wonder how many CEO's out there find that a bit offensive as they think of all the things they had to go through to earn their title of CEO? That's not to say he doesn't deserve the title, I mean, the man created something beyond genius, right? Ahhhh, the cycle continues, do you feel like you're in a hamster wheel?
This topic flooded our post-movie conversation for hours. After enough pondering, we can't help but wonder... what will our children want to be when they grow up? Will this impact how we raise them? What exactly do we mean when we say, 'you can do anything you set your mind to'? Why does it feel this shift comes with a shift in core principles too?
Needless to say, I'm still pondering... feel free to add your two cents below.
*Side note*- One thing I seriously underestimated about moving to the upper grades was the amount of reading I need to be doing! I want to keep up with the books 10-11 year olds enjoy so I can recommend books to them, but man... they're a bit longer than the pictures books I have surrounded myself with for so long. I do owe a great big thanks to tween authors of today though, you've drastically improved your craft since my tween days.
Anyways...
Mike and I went to see The Social Network a little over a week ago and I immediately knew I wanted to blog about it. Despite the disappointing news that the storyline was generously tweaked for rating purposes, it truly was a great movie and fascinating storyline.
The most interesting part to me was the idea that a person who is brilliant beyond belief can invent something such as Facebook and become a billionaire by the age of 26. Wow. I'm torn with this information though. On one hand, it's brilliant. If you are intelligent enough to create a social network, such as Facebook, without as much as one tiny glitch you probably deserve a hefty paycheck, right? But at the same time, doesn't it make you want to go into the age old rant sounding something like this, "whatever happened to good 'ol fashioned working your way to the top?" While I really can't come to a settling conclusion to this argument, I will say this movie accurately depicts the current state of the job market: it looks nothing like it did 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago, therefore everything we know about job preparation and 'qualifying skills' is changing every single day, therefore what we knew last week may be irrelevant today. This is staggering to me.
Case in point, when Mark and Facebook reached their millionth user, they celebrated and he made himself a business card. The business card said his name underneath his business slogan: I'm CEO B**CH. Hmmm, I wonder how many CEO's out there find that a bit offensive as they think of all the things they had to go through to earn their title of CEO? That's not to say he doesn't deserve the title, I mean, the man created something beyond genius, right? Ahhhh, the cycle continues, do you feel like you're in a hamster wheel?
This topic flooded our post-movie conversation for hours. After enough pondering, we can't help but wonder... what will our children want to be when they grow up? Will this impact how we raise them? What exactly do we mean when we say, 'you can do anything you set your mind to'? Why does it feel this shift comes with a shift in core principles too?
Needless to say, I'm still pondering... feel free to add your two cents below.
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