While we're at comparing to books, if FB tries to join Oculus with "social", I'd probably go with the castle basement from Walking on Glass:<p>[giant field of people with their heads in ceiling holes / helmets] "Each of these people is inside the head of a human being from the past [...] these have chosen to live out what time they have left as parasites, in the minds of others in forgotten times. They experience what others have experienced, they even have the illusion of altering the past, so that they seem to exercise free will, and apparently influence what their hosts do. It is to delay death, to turn to something like a drug, to turn away from reality, to refuse to face one's own defeat. I have heard it said that this is better than nothing, but... [...] Well, the castle feeds all the people you see, at any rate. They're eased out of the head-hole and given a bowl to sup from; they sit there with empty eyes, as though asleep, drink or sup, then like zombies go back to their own little world again. Their wastes are taken away in the same trains."