Well folks, said to say that this will be the final blog of this semester and probably the last blog from Dangerous Digital Communications. Yes, I know you are devastated. My loyal fans have read my blog through the good times and the bad times. But, we aren't quite done yet. This week's topic: the deceased on Facebook.
I know that in Titus's blog he had wrote about the memorial privacy setting on Facebook. Having unfortunately some Facebook friends over the years pass away, I thought that this was a good tool for their pages. It is kind of sad to see the picture of your deceased friend in the corner of your home page with a block of text that says "reconnect with him/ her."
I was asked myself after the first person I had die on facebook, "What the heck is going to happen if facebook doesn't die in 50 years and it is just filled with dead people?" Well, as a couple years passed I lost a few more friends on facebook and noticed a trend. People would start making groups on facebook in honor of their lost friend. They would use this group to discuss memories of the deceased or even to communicate with them in a way. I would say this is a good tool to mourn over a lost loved one.
However, lately these groups have been run differently (at least with my facebook friends). The last friend I had pass away had a group made for her hours after her death. It was made by the classmates of her little sister. I don't know about you, but I think that this could have been made by a person closer to the deceased. I saw another group where the creator spelled the dead person's name wrong.
What do you think will happen? Do you think that Facebook will last long enough that we can look at a whole generation of people's memorial sites? What do you think of these groups? Are people making memorial groups just to say they made a group with a bunch of people?
Hmmmmmmmmm. I could go either way on this. After Heather's blog about her friend who had his RIP page/status up before his mother could even be notified, and also your comment about someone's name being spelled wrong, it seems that the seriousness is being overlooked by a few. But at the same time, I would not have known my classmate died recently except that there were comments on Facebook to that effect.
ReplyDeleteNow, maybe that's not the most reverent or respectful way in some people's opinions to inform others of someone's demise, but I certainly don't think it's any worse than reading their obituary in the paper and finding out that way. And, as you mentioned, this is a therapeutic tool for people to work through grief. And that has to be good, right?
Zach,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear about your friends that have passed away. I can’t say that I have had anyone close to me that has a Facebook profile page that has passed away. I am a member of a couple of memorial groups that were started. In those situations those groups were started by close family members or relatives. I like to look at them every now and then and remind myself about the person that is no longer around. I think that it’s a good tool to mourn, but I do not think it will be around for very much longer. I just don’t think Facebook will be popular for very long; it’s on the way out.
I have also had friends that were on Facebook pass away and it is depressing when their pictures pop up on those side tools. I'm sorry to hear about your losses as well. I think the memorial groups are a good way to let people express their feelings and help mourn. I do agree that sometimes people who are closer to the person could make the groups. I do think Facebook will be full of these types of groups and have plenty to look back on. Possibly they may even help people out in the future to look up history.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing when I had a few friends on my Facebook that have passed away and that was what happens to their accounts? With my friends there have also been memorial groups made in their honor and it was simply a place to leave a memory or a good time that you had with the deceased. I think it is a good tool to use and a place for people to ‘gather’ and help themselves grieve. I do think that they can be created in bad taste though. Sometimes a little time needs to pass and a Facebook group does not need to happen immediately like in the case of your friend where a group was made only hours after the deceased had passed. Facebook is starting to take over a lot of things in our lives and this is such a sensitive topic already that it maybe doesn’t need to be broadcasted right away.
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