Facebook in Life and Death

We’ve all grown accustomed to using Facebook on a daily basis. Using it, we can interact with friends and family hundreds or thousands of miles away. In addition, Facebook gives us the ability to meet people online – people with whom we have never physically met. Such is the power of social networks online. Although its convenience and simplicity is revolutionary, online social networking sites raise some new ethical questions: namely, what happens to someone’s Facebook profile after they pass away?

Currently, Facebook’s policy is to follow close relatives’ wishes: the close relative alerts Facebook, at which point there are three options. The relative can either choose to eliminate the profile, put it in a “memorial” status for thirty days, or preserve the profile.

However, one of the powers of Facebook is the ability for friends to keep in contact, even if they are not in the same location. As a result, as Facebook becomes more prevalent, people have begun finding out that their friends and acquaintances are deceased from Facebook. Two types of opinions have emerged with respect to technology informing one of a deceased friend: those who believe that the style is cold and impersonal, and those who believe that the conveniences of online communication actually aids in the grieving process. Thoughts?







http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22056/74947-facebook--connecting-us-de