Director Jason Reitman felt so much of the acting in the film was so based on reactions to texts, chats, and photos that using dummy screens with no text would not suffice. The production team had to create very realistic-looking versions of popular websites, all on their own tightly controlled software, which the actors could interact with in real time. According to Reitman, they spent "the same amount of budget on creating the digital world as we did creating the physical one. People know what Facebook looks like better than they do a hotel lobby, you stare at it all day, so it had to be convincing."