It’s always strange when one of your Facebook friends dies.
Loved ones begin to tag them in pictures and statuses. Their timeline—personal page—becomes almost a memorial to them. As years go by, the deceased person’s friends will post in their honor on special anniversaries—birthdays, marriage anniversaries, even the anniversary of their death.
It seems quite eerie, but writing Facebook posts directed specifically at a deceased loved one is becoming a cultural norm.
Facebook and death have had a strange relationship. In the past, when Facebook realized an account holder died, it would freeze the account, so that it could not be tampered with, according to the Wall Street Journal.
But this angered many people who wanted to continue to interact with their deceased loved one’s page.
This week, in response to the backlash, Facebook introduced a new feature called the legacy contact.
By visiting their security settings, Facebook users can choose a friend to manage their account after they die.
There are a couple of important things to note about this new setting. Legacy contacts can change the deceased person’s profile picture, accept friend requests and pin posts to the deceased’s timeline under the legacy contact’s name. If granted permission, a legacy contact can archive the deceased’s posts and pictures.
The legacy contact can neither archive or view the deceased’s personal messages nor post statuses under the deceased person’s name.
This means that your Facebook account will become a personal memorial to you when you die.
If that sounds absolutely terrifying to you, don’t worry. You can choose to let Facebook delete your account when you die. This option is found in the legacy contact settings. If you don’t choose either of these options, Facebook will freeze your account as it did in the past.
We think this move was smart from a business standpoint. Facebook just found a way to satisfy all its users, regardless of whether they want to preserve their profile when they die.
But we think the legacy contact option creates other unforeseen issues.
As time goes by, more Facebook users will die. This means more pages of deceased people will spring up. Facebook is going to become almost an interactive, eternal obituary. Many people may not see a problem with that, but we must consider the nature of social media.
Social media is becoming a place where people connect with others. A recent study done by UCLA found that college freshmen are spending more time on social media and less time with friends. Social media is how our society is interacting.
The legacy contact feature does not allow the deceased person’s name to interact with others, but it certainly fosters interaction. When people post about a deceased person, they often address this person as if they are still alive. It seems as though people are using Facebook as a means of communicating with the dead.
The public nature of Facebook is also a problem. Grieving at funerals or gravesites allows for some privacy and a special moment. A Facebook post on a deceased person’s timeline will live on forever. Hundreds of people will see your post.
Facebook is changing the way we mourn for the deceased. Let’s consider the consequences before we choose to allow our pages to live on forever.
