It's a timely obsession. Just as polio captured the Cold War's feeling of paralysis, AIDS hysteria spoke to the sexual hangover from the '70s, and Prozac Nation answered the unease we felt about the '90s boom, autism is the disease of the moment for a time when computers are making us all feel less than human.

The death of Jett Travolta, whom some speculate had the brain-development disorder, has put autism in the headlines once more — though the papers hardly needed prompting. Michael Wolff, the shiny-pated media contrarian, identified the obsession with autism, but not its cause, in a recent blog post.

In its worst forms, autism is a horrible disease, incredibly painful for parents to deal with. It typically appears in a child by the age of three, interfering with the ability to communicate, blinding the victim to verbal and nonverbal conversational clues most of us take for granted.

Rain Man, the 1987 Dustin Hoffman movie, was for many the pop-culture introduction to autism, as well as the notion that it is often accompanied by unusual skills. But the mass-media fixation on it has grown as scientists have learned that autism exists on a spectrum. A milder form known as Asperger's syndrome — a combination of high intelligence and social ineptness — is thought to be practically epidemic in Silicon Valley; in 2001, Wired dubbed it the "geek syndrome." And since then, Time has put the disease on its cover twice.

The sliding scale of autism may be precisely what makes it so gripping now. The worry now: Are we all perhaps a bit autistic? Is the Internet turning us into robots, unable to express our emotions without mechanical help? Instant messaging famously suppresses social cues. Needing to type ":-)" to communicate our pleasure may give the tiniest hint of what the disease may be like.

There are a host of conspiracy theories about the rise in autism diagnoses, including the completely debunked notion it has something to do with vaccines. The consensus seems to be that we're seeing more autism cases because we're more primed to look for its symptoms. In other words, we see autism everywhere because we want to. And we look for it in our kids because we're obsessed with whether we have it ourselves.

Segar, who was also diagnosed with Asperger's before a death from unrelated causes in 1997, wrote that "like it or not, as an autistic person or someone with Asperger syndrome some jobs will be more suitable than others."

Segar lists computer programmer and architect as suitable careers. Mostly, Zuckerberg's job is a combination of those two. The tough part is that as a company founder and CEO, Zuckerberg has to be Facebook's chief spokesperson, which is really a sales job — and one Segar lists as especially difficult for those with Asperger's. It requires one to be an excellent conversationalist, a particular challenge to those diagnosed with the syndrome.

He also offers tips for the afflicted on how to talk. Here's his most relevant advice on how Zuckerberg could avoid stalling when faced with the likes of Stahl:

• Be careful of stating the obvious.
• Listening can be extremely difficult, especially if you have to keep your ears open 24 hours a day, but you can get better with practice. The most important thing to listen to is the plot of the conversation.
• Be on the lookout for eye contact from other people as it can often mean they would like to hear your point of view.
• Body language doesn't just include gestures, it also includes facial expressions, eye contact and tone of voice.
• You might be one of these people who almost talks in a single tone without knowing it.Ask a trustworthy person if this is true and if it is you may have to exaggerate the intonation in your voice to emphasise what you say, but not too much. This will sound artificial at first.
• If you are a young man whose voice is breaking, then if you find it more comfortable just let it break for good. It may sound strange at first on the inside but it will be sounding much more natural on the outside. If you are worried about what your friends might think which should only be a short term problem anyway, it may be useful to take the opportunity of letting your voice break while you are changing schools.
• [For interviews] prepare as many possible answers for as many possible questions as you can but don't over rehearse or rigidify your answers. It is good to get help at this stage.
• Aim to be the assertive type, one who has an upright but relaxed stance, maintains eye contact when listening or speaking (for over two thirds of the time) looking at faces as a whole, can express his true feelings, and is interested in other people's opinions as well as his own.
• If you don't react to other people's body language with your own, they might mistake you for being unsympathetic.
• If you try to come across as being cooler, wittier, tougher and more confident that other people, then whenever you break an unwritten rule people might mistake it for nastiness. In this case, it might be in your best interest to drop your pretence.