Death and Facebook

whodatdabeaux said

Sorry to hear about your friend man. Reading these posts are making me think about deleting my facebook. It just has me thinking of how much of my time I put into facebook and even though it allows me to get a better view into my friends lives I don't want my last memories of them to be the things that they posted online. When I die I want people to remember the good times we had together but not the status or the pictures that I post on my facebook at times when I was not with them. At the same time its good in a way that if you were to pass more of the people who you have enjoyed your life with are able to know of your passing when the time comes. I guess this may lead me to stop posting as many pictures, links, videos, and status as I do now.

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But I think therein lies the quandary.

If you delete your facebook page or heavily moderate your use out of fear of what memory of you it would leave, you aren't really being you at all then - are you? I think that while the facebook content can make someone's passing that much more palpable and can intensify the feelings, it can also give something to friends and loved one that they wouldn't have had otherwise: the real you, just being you.

Jeff and Boudro raise a point I hadn't yet thought about either: deleting the person's page. I imagine that act has to be gut wrenching and not done without intense reflection. It really is like we have our corporeal person, and then our cyber person. The latter cannot be updated without the former, but it can continue to exist until someone turns out the light.