My son Dave showed me the episode from the South Park, season 14, titled “You have 0 friends“. This great episode resonates with my understanding of the virtual world, hence this blog.
1. People who are using Facebook daily are doomed to lose their social skills. I mean, seriously.
2. People enjoying social networks are either already sick or getting there. On the surface it looks like social networks help lonely people to find someone to talk to. But people are more and more immersing into a virtual world and getting back to reality may become problematic, at least to some of them.
3. Young generation has troubles in communicating with people in the real world because of social networks. Yes, I’m an old fart, and you don’t need to remind me about it, but I’m actually meeting my friends face-to-face.
4. To me, the best momemt of this South Park episode is at about 8’10”. But what if he wouldn’t get a response? This would be a disaster (in a real world). Do you know what should you do after watching this episode? Watch it again. Recognized yourself? Sorry, but you’re on the road to join the world of people’s profiles… Good luck in getting back to the reality.
5. I’m not a social networks nazi. I have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Twitter is for business. Facebook – I just don’t know how to cancel it. LinkedIn is for business.
6. Don’t trust me? Read this.
7. When I see that so-and-so wants to connect with me on LinkedIn I just ignore it unless I know this person.
8. There is another very smart movie about the World War III (Facebook user may need to watch it twice to get it).
9. Enjoy this hashtag video with Justin Timberlake.
Close your Facebook account. Get real. Do you know how many friends you need in a real life? Just one.
yakovfain.com 
Great post! Totally agree, fb sucks. Shared it on G+.
Ha Ha. What is facebook? Did I miss another bubble. dur…duh…?
Dear Mr Fain,
I like your Don Quixote – approach to the matter… Yet another thing sparked my reaction.
I watched this video of “a trillion $ campaign” and it seems to me that the only thing that catches American public’s attention (given the number of YT views) is money – to be more specific their own money (I think people use to call it “tax payer’s money”).
On the other hand, an employee of US army, holding a gun and doing whatever a soldier gets paid for, is referred to as “our kid being sent overseas”.
So tell me, if we’re not supposed to talk about the money in a casual conversation (but that’s actually all we ever care for), and if it’s a heresy to call US soldier a professional killer, what can we talk to each other about – eye to eye?
So one puts on a “social-network-protection-mask” and starts socializing…
To be honest, I’m such an admirer of your work (books, blog, podcast…), and I would never be able to reply to you on this topic in such a harsh manner, If there wasn’t this “web” distance…
Greetings from Belgrade!
I’m not Don Quixote, and I’m not fighting Facebook. I’m just writing what I feel at the moment. Not sure I understand your message about the money/soldiers. I can just say that I don’t want our kids-soldiers go anywhere to the foreign soil.
But people who spend most of their time playing games and living in the world of poking and likes have wrong perception of what wars are. Who cares – I had 5 lives, and now I have only three. Unfortunately, in the real world you can’t just press the button and start the game over when the number of lives iz zero.
I sincerely hope you won’t find my tendency to re-explain myself offensive.
My assumption was that if young generation is raised in a constant truth-avoiding environment, sooner or later something will have to go wrong.
And maybe young generation’s inability to look each other in the eye is just what went wrong.
And maybe that’s why millions of people hide behind their “personal profiles”.
This problem is not an American-exclusive, but it seems that the US public has to be the first one to resolve it (and the pattern would eventually spread worldwide, as it does for everything else).
Once again I salute You. Keep doing what You’re best at (at least, right next to Barry Burd and Mehran Sahami 🙂
Can’t wait to see your next post!
Budam, you’re 200% right. I will say more. Social life ruining that you just have mentioned is just a part of the problem. And what would you say about young and shameless startup douchebags like this guy:
http://dcurt.is/startups-ruin-you
He dares to claim that “Privacy is relic of the past”. I think it’s bigger challenge to all mind–healthy people than social life ruining.
PS. Sorry for obscene word, but I think it hits the point now.
5 years ago I would say that “social networks” are in fact “antisocial” by nature. But now I think that the true goal of these social networks is to create a new kind of the society. Fully trackable (absolutely no privacy) human resources with high mobility (no relations with family/friends due to lack thereof). Having such resources is very beneficial for the government and the modern economy.
Valery, I’m with you.
Many years ago when Google rapidly and surprisingly became the #1 search engine, I had a feeling that this company has a very powerful sponsor, namely the US government. Obviously, it’s just a feeling, but back I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we’ll learn how the project “Google” was created.
I have a similar feeling with Facebook, which save lots of money that the goverment would need to inject into the FBI and CIA. Why bother spending top dollars finding the information on people? They will gladly share it on the Facebook. It sucks, but you can’t stop this.
Welcome to the machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qEsTCTuajE