Monday, November 2, 2009

Death and facebook revisited yet again

So far, two of my facebook friends have passed out of this world, and are beyond the reach of the Internet. Don Fisher and Harold Conrad.

No, this post is not about the passing of friend number three, thankfully. Instead, it is just a bit amusing, in a morbid sort of way.

When I discovered lists in facebook, I created several of them. One I labeled "deceased". My two dear departed friends are alone so far in this list.

With the recent change in the way facebook displays news on my home page, I took advantage of moving the "Status Update" item to the head of the list, and also sometimes use my friend lists to see the additional features missing from the status-updates-only news feed.

When I clicked absently on each list today, I was galvanized by this display for my "deceased" list:

Ouch!

"No recent posts from this list." Not too surprising. They would have to find an ISP in whatever realm* they are located, get an account, a computer, etc. etc.

But what about the suggestion, "Add friends to this list"? No, sorry, I don't want to add any more friends to this list! And, I seriously doubt--if I were led to the dread necessity of doing so--that I would actually "see more posts."

But wait. Facebook can now change such accounts into memorial accounts. I suppose that once this has happened, one could expect new news, due to people writing on the wall of this memorial account.

Apparently, it is also possible for family members to have the account of a deceased relative removed entirely. But, it would seem that this is an arduous process.
*My friend, John Quinley, suggested in conversation that, in Hell, if there were Internet access, it would probably be at dial-up speeds, with frequent outages.

1 comment:

Myrna said...

You are such a fun and interesting brother! You make me smile.