[nostromo]

Meh. This is a touch over-the-top.

You know what Facebook is to me nowadays? It's another flavor of Gmail. Sometimes I send and receive messages there. It's plumbing. Sometimes I turn the spigot on for some updates, then turn it off and go about my day.

I think pro-social and anti-social pundits are both wrong about the upside and downside of social. Social is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfall of humanity. It's kinda like Gmail.

[noilly]

Agreed. In its current incarnation, social is merely a utility. Network effect inertia ~ Natural monopoly

[fideloper]

I agree - I think users would simply not use it, as many choose to not actively engage in Facebook.

That is not to discount the age issue. Youngsters are conceivably less ready to think of the longer-term consequences of using such a "social network".

But still. Plumbing.

[photorized]

Except FB (well, plus mobile), has managed to change people's behaviors. Your flight is delayed, you are sitting at the airport lounge - and everyone is monkeying with his or her device. No more talking to strangers.

Gmail hasn't done that.

[potatohead00]

No, Gmail didn't do that - but people still avoided social interaction in those kinds of situations by reading magazines/newspapers/books or playing gameboy, etc.

[coffeemug]

Social is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfall of humanity. It's kinda like Gmail.

The printing press is neither the next giant leap forward, nor is it the downfall of humanity. It's kinda like hand-copied books.

[jiaaro]

Except the part where he uses gmail and facebook exactly the same way, with exactly the same amount of effort, and exactly the same amount of cost, and to exactly the same effect…

[njl]

Just because you can play Mad-Libs with his sentence to make it seem silly, doesn't mean you are adding anything to the conversation. Social networking is a fun and interesting development, but putting it in the same category as the printing press makes me think you are either greatly undervaluing the printing press, greatly overvaluing social networking, or more likely, both.

[harigov]

Better way of looking at it is:

gmail is for person-to-person communication. facebook is more of a person-to-restricted-group communication. twitter is person-to-public communication.

Each one has its own positive and negative points. Whatever it is, it's not your life and don't treat it as such.

[slashedzero]

I agree to an extent. I think if you look at the average user (generally not someone on HN), you'll see that it is cheapening their experiences. When preteens can quantify how popular they are based on the number of "likes" they get, it is bound to change "social" behavior.

[bhanks]

I agree completely. Social media is what you make of it. If you don't like it just unplug.