《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第120期:FACEBOOK之死亡國(1)
FACEBOOK OF THE DEAD
Q. When, if ever, will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than of living ones?
Q．何時（如果真有那麼一天的話）Facebook上死人的賬戶數會超過活人的賬戶數？——Emily Dunham
——埃米莉•鄧納姆
“Put on your headphones!” “Can't. Ears fell off.”
“戴上耳機！”“做不到啊，耳朵早掉啦。”A. EITHER THE 2060S OR the 2130s.
A．不是206X年就是213X年。There are not a lot of dead people on Facebook.1 The main reasons for this is that Facebook-and its users-are young. The average Facebook user has gotten older over the last few years, but the site is still used at a much higher rate by the young than by the old.
目前Facebook上死人賬戶並不多。1a這主要是因爲Facebook——以及它的用戶們——都很年輕。在過去幾年中，Facebook用戶的平均年齡確實在上漲，但目前玩Facebook的年輕人還是遠超老年人。The past
過去Based on the site's growth rate, and the age breakdown of its users over time,2 there are probably 10 to 20 million people who created Facebook profiles who have since died.
年老的科利•多克託羅正在cosplay未來的人認爲他在過去的穿着。These people are, at the moment, spread out pretty evenly across the age spectrum. Young people have a much lower death rate than people in their 60s or 70s, but they make up a substantial share of the dead on Facebook simply because there have been so many of them using it.
根據Facebook的增長速度，以及這些年來註冊用戶的年齡段演變來看，2這之中大約有1000萬到2000萬註冊用戶已經去世了。An elderly Cory Doctorow cosplaying by wearing what the future thinks he wore in the past.
目前來看，這些人在年齡段上分佈均勻。雖然年輕人的死亡率比六七十歲的老人要低，但由於他們佔了Facebook用戶中的大部分，因而死去的年輕人的數量還是和死去的老年人的數量差不多。The future
未來About 290,000 US Facebook users probably died in 2013. The worldwide total for 2013 is likely several million.3 In just seven years, this death rate will double, and in seven more years it will double again.
約有29萬Facebook美國用戶將（或已經）在2013年死去，而全球在2013年大約要死幾百萬人。3只需7年，死亡率就會翻倍；再過7年，死亡率還會再翻一番。Even if Facebook closes registration tomorrow, the number of deaths per year will continue to grow for many decades, as the generation who was in college between 2000 and 2020 grows old.
即使Facebook明年就關閉註冊，每年的死亡數還會持續上升，這個勢頭將保持好幾十年，因爲2000年到2020年間讀大學的人都開始變老了。The deciding factor in when the dead will outnumber the living is whether Facebook adds new living users-ideally, young ones-fast enough to outrun this tide of death for a while.
決定死人賬號數何時超過活人賬戶數的關鍵因素在於，Facebook的新增用戶速度——一般是那些年輕人——能否快過老用戶死亡的速度。
