William Blake added you as a friend on Facebook

HISTORY isn’t littered with all that many visionaries, but those we do have tend to be of an artistic bent – not so much engineers. When I hear talk of visionaries, the names of artists such as Max Ernst and possibly the fawning royalist Salvador Dali come to mind, moreover I think of Coleridge and, combining the role of artist and poet, William Blake. I consider Blake to be one of the finest minds to have ever existed – and even that is putting it lightly.

All of which brings us improbably to Mark Zuckerberg and the new film ‘The Social Network’ – this is not a review of the film and nor do I ever intend to see it, even though it has received good reviews I can’t help but think there’s something of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ about the plot. However, I saw an advert somewhere in cyberspace for the film which described Mr Zuckerberg as, besides a genius, a visionary.

This strikes me as playing fast and loose with the term. (It should be noted that neither he nor anyone from Facebook was involved with the film so this isn’t necessarily his own vanity.) No one can deny that Facebook is a popular success and has made its founder a rich man. All good so far. But to call him a visionary opens up the door to Steve Jobs and any other successful computer programmers or designers. Speaking of emperors, Facebook itself is a little naked: it hasn’t brought people closer together, it’s part of the great 21st century long-con, that more communication means better communication. People can no longer wait more than a few hours to tell each other what they’ve been doing – who cares if they’ve been to the gym or which loser they like the best on X-Factor? How can one look forwards to seeing someone if you’ve watched a week long spat between her and her ex on the ‘News Feed’?

People need a break from technology in order to simply be – not much to ask, but not something they are likely to get with the continuing advances in smartphone technology. People can become dependent on virtual contact and relationships to the point where it impedes on their ‘real’ lives, and this, like addiction to computer games, is a surprisingly neglected health hazard, given our health-and-safety-conscious bureaucratic world.

Facebook is, of course, to be highly commended for the advances it has made in aiding stalkers, i.e. the general male population, hunt down the various women they work with, commute with or have groped the night before. Not all that different from its initial incarnation as ‘FaceMash’. There is no malice behind any of this; I do, somewhat grudgingly, use Facebook and clearly Zuckerberg is a talent but in one hundred years’ time I don’t think he’ll be rubbing shoulders on Wikipedia with Hieronymus Bosch and Blake. Of course, I could be wrong; he could be the architect of the future.