On You Have One New Death
@Too Much Internet Yes, there is something that you can do. I didn't have to do it, but my friend's brother (after she had passed) did do this after her first birthday came up and we were all prompted to write on her wall :(
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On You Have One New Death
I'm sorry for your loss. It's terrible to lose anyone, especially someone young or closer to your own age. My friend and I both read your article and have been talking about our opinions on this matter. We're in agreement that Facebook is a great tool for keeping up with people, but its users have abused its purpose and have substituted actual verbal conversing for wall comments and IMs. I've been reading these comments and it looks like it's not an issue with Facebook etiquette (in some cases), it's an issue with people not having either common sense or social decency for some stuff that gets automatically posted into their status. I have no idea when sharing every immediate thought, feeling or something 'newsworthy' became acceptable to do. But, I digress.
At the conclusion of your article, my friend turned and said to me, "If I die, please, post it on Facebook." This isn't sarcasm. He said this because he studied abroad for over a year in Europe and made friends from every continent, over a dozen countries, and across a couple languages. It was more important to him that these friends would find out the truth than to never find it out at all, or find out well after the fact. I can appreciate this because I'm not going to have the phone numbers or e-mails for all of his friends in Turkey and Switzerland and Costa Rica. I knew a girl with whom I shared a class in college, a particularly difficult one and we supported each other through it. Then she transferred to another college on the other side of the state and I figured, well, we were Facebook friends and we could talk there. I had her number but I wasn't going to expect a call from her or anything. Two years later, I found out that not long after she had transferred, she was killed in a car accident. We didn't come from the same hometown, we weren't at the same school anymore and it's not as though it would show up somewhere else. I remember wishing I had found out on Facebook when it happened so I could have paid my respects.
But I have been in a situation where I did not want people to find out on Facebook. One of my dearest, closest friends died in a tragic accident on her way to work one evening. The police notified her parents, who lived in another state, late into the night. Here, in the USA (for the non-USA readers and writer), once a family is notified, the newspapers can release names of people that passed. Come morning, as my friend's parents are driving the four hours to the city where her older brother lived to tell him in person, the newspapers had already released the story of the accident. I cannot tell you how absolutely, beyond-words devastated I was when I happened to click on a news article online and there was her name in black and white. I immediately called her brother, who had just then found out from his parents, and then I had to be the one to call people I didn't want them to find out on Facebook. One of those calls still makes me ill to think about years later. Another one of her friends did make a group after those of us that were close to her were notified, and it was a nice thing to have because it was clear she was well loved. Even a year after she had passed, there were still people that commented that they had only just found out, and felt terrible about it.
Online social media has become what is normal for communication anymore, and frankly it's sad. When was the last time someone *called* a friend instead of sending a text or an IM? If something were to happen to me, I know that my family has the information of those that I consider to be my closest or best friends, and that they would not find out on Facebook. Maybe this is because I'm more conscious of what can happen without real contact information, like a phone number, because of my own experiences. Facebook is such murky territory.
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On You Have One New Death
@karion: That was oddly complimentary! I went back and re-read it like Fabian and it does sound even more endearing. If my comments had voice-overs, I would have her do it.