Get unplugged, you screen addict! (Meetup approves this message)

One of the first 2.0 entrepreneurs that really made an impression on me was Scott Heiferman, CEO and co-founder of MeetUp. When I attended one of my classes at New York University in 2006, he gave a guest lecture. He told us that online services should be all about helping people. The goal of his start-up was to connect people in real life by using the web. Well, that obviously worked out fine.

But now Heiferman and his team feel like there’s the need for a second campaign. The avalanche of Twitter-like services made us screen addicts again. This awesome video says it all:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhpf-CcPy-s]

Meetup has built a funny site around this video, giving you the opportunity to unplug one of your friends with a pre-written email (you can choose from several sentences though):

It’s an epidemic. It can strike anyone. It begins harmlessly enough… maybe with a cell phone, an online social network profile, or an IM. But before long, the electronic screens invade every corner of your life.

There’s a name for this tragic and extremely annoying condition: Screen Addiction.

But there is hope. Send an intervention to someone you care about! Help them take the first step towards recovery.

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I’ve always digged Meetup’s mission to connect people offline via an online service. Now they’re giving it an ever better twist by launching this (soon to be viral) campaign. It’s not boring, it’s not cheesy, it absolutely rocks.