comm seminar paper
TRANSCRIPT
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Running head: Facebook: Giving Deceased Users Immortality
Facebook: Giving Deceased Users Immortality
Jennifer Styers
Queens University of Charlotte
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Facebook: Giving Deceased Users Immortality
You will always be missed can be a common messageposted on a deceased users
Facebook page. In this social networking world, even the dead are memorialized on Facebook,
by allowing friends and family members to post comments, pictures and messages after death on
their profile page. This allows the deceased to be granted a virtual existence and be almost
immortalized to their loved ones. The use of this space can give users an outlet to post emotions
and talk to those who have passed as if they are able to respond or share information for
remembrance. After the Virginia Tech massacre, the public outcry on Facebook was prevalent
for the mourning of this tragedy, though this was positive in this situation it is not always the
case in other deaths.
Facebook has approximately 500 million active users, who spend over 700 billion
minutes on the website, which holds 30 billion pieces of content (facebook.com/statistics). It
gives users a way to connect and communicate with friends, family and outsiders in a virtual
space. These users share photos, comments, videos, messages, awareness and platforms through
this website; sometimes dead or alive. When a Facebook user becomes deceased their profile is
not always deleted.
After a passing of a Facebook employee in 2009, the company created a system called
memorializing a profile account, in Thomas MacEntees article Facebook and Dead Members-
another policy gone bad?(2009) shares what happens when an account becomes memorialized.
If the company finds out about a death the corporation will automatically change the account
setting to memorialized, this will include not being able to add any more friends, post from the
deceased user will be removed and only current users that were friends with the member will be
able to see the profile and comment on their page. This policy cannot be strictly enforced
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because the company cannot know about every death that occurs. Even if family members
request to terminate an account of the deceased, Facebook will not give out login information
because of strict privacy rules that are stated in the agreement of becoming a user. MacEntee
tells Facebook believes heavily in the privacy of the users, no login information will ever be
handed out to anyone who is not the specific user, even at request of family members
(MacEntee). Facebook has received negative press over the issue of family however to date the
policy stays intact and no changes are in the works to be made.
Some families may want to cancel Facebook accounts for their deceased members but
some find this as a way to connect and remember those who they have lost, the world saw this
after the Virginia Tech massacre. On April 16, 2007 CNN reported A student gunman shot and
killed 32 individuals including students, faculty and staff later turning the gun on himself
(cnn.com). The nation stood in shock for a few moments then in the words of Cathy Lynn
Grossman reporter for USA Today (2007) from her article Today We are all HokiesAfter the
massacre the global community turned to Facebook (Grossman, 2007), students from Virginia
Tech posted information on their walls of the days happenings, and students from other
university showed their help and support through creating Facebook groups to remember the
slain students. All across the United States numerous universities and colleges took part in a
stance saying that Todaywe are all Hokies (www.vtmagazine.vt.edu). Groups were created
for information on the days events, support groups for the students, and fundraising for a
memorial fund for those who were lost. Many groups or comments on the website were to just
show support to the university, many felt that they just needed to show that they were there for
the victims friends and families even if through a website.
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Facebook: Giving Deceased Users Immortality 4
The massacre happened in 2007 which was before Facebook had any policy about the
deceased and what to do in the situation of death. There was debate on if the profiles of the
individuals, who died in the shootings, would stay online. Facebook wanted to take the pages off
the website. In Monica Hortobagy article Slain Students Pages to Stay on Facebookin USA
Today (2007), said that Friends and family wanted the pages to stay online After deliberation
the pages were determined to stay online, at this time in Facebooks history they believed that
they needed to protect dead and felt that removing the pages altogether would be the best policy
later they would adopt the policy that is listed above. Student John Woods friend of one of the
victims is quoted in the article saying It may seem silly to post messages to people who will not
answer, but these pages are all that we have left of their voices, and the rest of their voices have
been stolen from us (Hortobagy, 2007).
Silly it may be but this has become common practice for many of the deceased that are
left on Facebook, giving them a virtual existence and has become an outlet for their friends and
family. Deborah Rogers an English Professor at the University of Maine talks about her
experiences with this new practice of memorializing. After the death of a promising student she
once taught, she decided to take a deeper look into this new practice and the benefits and
problems that it has started. She has written an article calledI Poke Dead People: the paradox of
Facebook(2009), her article tells her story of joining Facebook and the new experiences that
the baby boomer generation can experience, later she reveals the story of her students death and
the mourning that happened through Facebook (Rogers, 2009). Her article brings up issues that
this medium has created through memorializing individuals.
One of the issues that Rogers bring up is that Facebook users cannot stop talking, even
with no answer, there seems to be a need to keep on communicating with the person as if they
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can still read their profile page. After her students death Rogers learned many facts about her
student, which she did not know before. Through these posts that friends felt they needed to take
part in she learned many facts and information that furthered the bond that she had once felt with
her student, she believes that this can be applied in other cases with friends and family members
of the deceased. She also talks about how many students who were friends with the girl who
died, changed their profile picture to one of them and the girl who passed A problem started
when after a few weeks the students didnt want to be the first one who changed their picture,
they didnt want people to think they didnt care or it wasnt important anymore (Rogers, 2009).
Rogers says that this process of memorializing does not help friends and family move on in the
process as they should.
Deborah Rogers is not the only one who has study this issue of death and memorializing
on Facebook, Elizabeth Stone writes about the problems memorializing in the Chronicle of
Higher Education her article Grief in the age of Facebook(2010), she tells that Facebook offers
solace but it also offers uncertainty. One of the main issues that she has pointed out is that users
do not know when to stop mourning. This new way of dealing with grief in the social network
world is causing attachment issues, and is also taking the sting out of death. Unfortunately the
world is seeing a rise in copycat suicides. Copycat suicides are after a person has witnessed the
effects of the suicide of another they commit the act themselves. Stone believes that many of
these cases have witnessed the reactions on peoples profiles and the amount ofgood attention
that they have received after their passing. Stone tells of a young man who was pursuing
modeling and acting in New York and left his suicide note on Facebook, some friends thought of
it as a joke and others did not see it in time to respond(Stone,2010).
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Like Stone, Rogers brings up the issue of suicide she tells that Facebook has taken the
sting out of passing, which has lead to suicides. The point that Rogers leaves off on in her
article is that this outlet has Prevented people to deal with death because it creates immortality
(Rogers, 2009) Users are unable to disconnect from their friends or family that have been
memorialized on Facebook. When users still receive notifications on birthdays, or post that other
users have put on the deceased walls, it makes it harder for the loved one to be able to let go and
gives them a presence as if they are still alive. It distorts the relationships that they have once
shared and what the reality is now.
Facebook is an important medium when dealing with Web Space, Media Space and also
now Dead Space. Freud says we need to detach to heal from the passing of a loved one, but
Facebook has given the deceased a new life or virtual existence to their friends and family. It has
become normal in todays society to see a memorialized page on Facebook or a group supporting
one such as the Virginia Tech Massacre. Also to see others communicate with the deceased on
their once Facebook Page is not unusual. Our culture has accepted practices as such and finds it
normal, though they may not be what are best for users and their grieving process. This practice
of memorializing has caused issues such as attachment and copy cat suicide which will have to
be dealt with as this practice grows on. Though this practice has caused issues within the social
networking world it has opened a realm of communication in this culture.
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References
Facebook Statistics. Facebook. Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com
Grossman, C. (2007). 'Today, we are all Hokies' on Facebook. USA Today, Retrieved from
Academic Search Premier database.
Hortobagy, M. (2007). Slain students' pages to stay on Facebook. USA Today, Retrieved from
Academic Search Premier database.
MacEntee,T.(2009). Facebook and dead members-another policy gone bad? The Examiner.
Retrieved from http://examinar.com
Massacre at Virginia Tech (2007). Victims honored at commencement. CNN. Retrieved from
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/
Rogers, D. (2009). I poke dead people: the paradox of Facebook. Times Higher Education,
(1901), 40-42. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.
Stone, E. (2010). Grief in the Age of Facebook. Chronicle of Higher Education, 56(25), B20.
Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.
Virginia Tech Magazine. (2007).Today we are all Hookies, memorial issue. Virginia Tech
Magazine Retrieved from http://www.vtmagazine.vt.edu/memorial07/today.html