Facebook Memorial



It's crunch time.  Just over two weeks of school left and the projects and tests are piling up. No better time for a little procrastination. That 100% what I was doing when I came across an article off google that prompted me to write.  This article in question was from The Telegraph newspaper and was regarding the growing trend of memorial pages on Facebook.  This form of memorial started simply, as friends and family member posting on a the deceased persons page.  The deceased person's Facebook page becoming a sort of online gravestone or monument where their loved ones could visit and pay their respects and reflect upon good times and memories had.

This really caught me off guard. I had never really considered that if someone were to die suddenly, their Facebook page would endure. This article is somewhat dated, being from 2009. However, for me it still brings to light several issues with this form of memorial.  Prior to the publication date of this article, Facebook memorial pages were litterally just the deceased's original page.  This was a problem for many as some posts to these persons walls would appear in friends and families news feeds. In some cases, especially for those suffering from grief, these updates from a deceased loved one could be tortuous. On Oct. 26, 2009 Facebook announced it would be introducing memorial pages.  These pages would still allow for friends and family to post comments but would not allow anyone to log on to the account and would also not send out notifications or news feeds. Nonetheless, there are still problems with this.  For example, up until recently the reconnect feature on Facebook could occaisionally still suggest you try to reconnect with the deceased. Upon further searching on the internet I also came accross some extremely disturbing instance when these pages had me utilised by some demeted individuals to continue spewing hateful comments at those deceased.  These things asside I like the idea of Facebook memorial.  With the ever increasing power of social media more and more people having access to Facebook, there is no telling how popular this trend may become.

Have a look for yourself, try googling "Facebook memorial" it truly amazed me how many results it returned.

Here is the Telegraph article in question:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/6445152/Facebook-introduces-memorial-pages-to-prevent-alerts-about-dead-members.html