For the assignment concerning cyber bullying, I submitted an article about a teenaged girl who was bullied into committing suicide. As a response to the suicide, two other teenagers created a Facebook page as a memorial to her. The page quickly added over seven thousand friends, posting both positive and negative comments. The story brought up the little discussed phenomenon of death and the internet.
There has been instances when an online gaming community will stage virtual funerals for their fellow players. There are now websites that specialized in funeral services such as obituaries and guest books for sending condolences. Youtube can be used to make tributes to the deceased, letting viewers share their memories as they would in a wake.
As is in all things, the way death is experienced is changing through the use of the internet. In many cases deceased is celebrated by a community that has never met them in person. The internet allows friends and family separated by great distances to participate in a funeral they may have other wised would be forced to miss. As a video showed in an earlier assignment explained, the internet can also be used for coping after the passing of a loved one. As a large community the experience of death has a widespread impact, and they way the this community chooses to respond to death reflects this.
Interesting. I've always wondered what happens to the social networking sites of the deceased; do they go on indefinitely? One of my wife's friends died last year, and his FB page has turned into a sort of shrine; people leave messages to him as if he were still alive, and there was a ton of activity on his birthday and the anniversary of his death. You're right: living in a digital society forces us to reconsider death.
ReplyDeleteMy brother-in-law kept his wife's Facebook account going since she died of cancer last year. He put pictures of her life on it so when someone thinks of her, they can post a message for her friends to see. It could be a good virtual healing tool.
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