The man who didn't know he was free The next election will be fought out on social media. Picture: Evan Vucci. A rash of reports hint at dwindling Facebook usage. SOCIAL media's list of victims keeps mounting - but no, we don't mean the hapless Australians soon to be bombarded with helpful hints on how to vote in the upcoming election. May God, as well as Uncles Kevin and Tony, have mercy on their souls. Nor is the latest victim just another sod to be bullied or lynched by a mob of cyber cowards. Nor is he one of the growing numbers of ex-users who has confronted his or her "addiction" and now boasts of friendships that include actual encounters with real people. This latest victim did not suffer because of what happened on social media or in trying to disengage from it. He suffered from an extreme form of new-age dyslexia, a common malady. He wanted to get involved in new technology but did not know where to start. According to media reports, the Taiwanese man, in his 50s, felt isolated from his grandchildren. They were on their phones and computers all the time. The poor man felt useless. He couldn't do what millions worldwide do when the drone with the nametag in the shop throws around acronyms, or when a geeky friend corners you about a new phone. He couldn't bluff. "I suddenly realised that I really have to get with the times," the man apparently wrote in a suicide note found next to his body. Going on living this way is scarier than dying. It's a dreadful story, laden with the inevitable what-ifs. It sounds as if the man naively accepted the long-held line, propagated in a recent newspaper article which began: "In today's world, not having Facebook is akin to leprosy." The man obviously didn't know what he was missing. Kevin Rudd's shaving selfie. Dave Warner's texting rants. He could not have been across the UK story about a woman who received rape threats on Twitter after she advocated more female faces on bank notes. He could not have followed the calibre of tweets on Q&A. If the man had watched 612 videos of cats falling off chairs, he may have recognised, perhaps, that he was more liberated than the grandchildren he felt so disconnected from. He's hardly alone: studies suggest that about one in five Australians do not use the internet at all. It seems unlikely he knew his death would coincide with the birthdate of writer, Aldous Huxley, whose 1932 classic, Brave New World, projected a future in which freedoms are suppressed in return for pleasures. In Huxley's vision, humanity surrenders its collective reasoning for a blithe adherence to mass distraction. Linking such grim effects to the social media age have long been identified. The Taiwanese grandfather was unacquainted with an emerging trend. Many enlightened people have failed to bow to Facebook and Twitter. They baulk at posting flattering photos of themselves and perpetuating streams of drivel. They wonder at how some Facebook users accumulate "friends" in the manner Imelda Marcos once gathered shoes. Many non-users have become louder about expressing their reticence for Facebook. Dare we say that it is becoming cool to say you are not cool? Not long ago, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig, claimed he had never sent or received an email. The admission was received with initial scepticism, which was then followed by reflection. Wouldn't short phone calls be more efficient than email briefs? Doesn't chatting over a cubicle partition sometimes beat exchanges of missives? Twitter may infiltrate daily news, mainly because it can be a forum for users to offend, to be offended and for everyone to judge whether culprits and victims are being apportioned their rightful doses of offence. About three in 20 Australians are on Twitter. They "follow" one another around, eyes fixed on the glowing screens in their hands. They spread facts fast, certainly, but they often get them wrong, too. David Attenborough might study those on Twitter as a separate breed, given their apparently punchy and thrusting attitudes, though he should approach them with caution, lest the herd turn on him. Far more Australians are on Facebook. Yet a rash of reports hint at dwindling Facebook usage, citing issues of narcissism, self-esteem and prospective employers checking out your page and concluding you are a moron. There's also the privacy thing, which harks back to Huxley and George Orwell's 1984 - electronic trails are simple to track and almost impossible to erase. Huxley, by the way, died the same day US president John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Kennedy is remembered for speeches about liberty and freedom. History recalls little about his shaving mishaps.