How My Facebook Habits Changed (Dramatically) When My Friend Died

This week’s blog post is selfish. It’s not for you, it’s for me. I am intellectualizing my grief because I don’t know what else to do with it. Sometimes when I write it helps me understand my feelings, so this is me trying to cope.

Earlier this year I stopped logging into Facebook regularly. I made a few exceptions: that one time my friend’s baby video went viral, and that other time my brother got married. But mostly I just haven’t cared to read what any of my connections have to say to their internet friends. The hateful rhetoric of the 2016 election wasn’t helping. One day Facebook wanted me to confirm my identity, and rather than taking the extra step to pass their security measures I just stopped logging in entirely.

Then Stephanie died. I was grateful that my friend picked up the phone to call and tell me. I’m glad I didn’t find out on Facebook. I called my brother that night. I talked to my mom, too. Not having the chance to say goodbye to someone I care about compelled me to remind those I love most that I care about them too. I needed to hear their voices, not just tap out a few words on a screen. I stayed up late until my roommate got home from work. She was angry. She had been on Facebook, and was pissed at how someone was posting on Stephanie’s wall. She didn’t think it was appropriate. I didn’t think to ask her at the time what it was that bothered her and why, but this is something that I might talk to her about in the future.

The next day my roommate told me about the GoFundMe campaign. It had been shared on Facebook. I knew I wanted to donate, so I bit the bullet and logged in. Facebook’s algorithm knew that it was the most important thing happening in my network that day, so the link popped up at the top of my feed. Thank you, Facebook, for making it easy to find exactly what I wanted today. I clicked over to the campaign.

It’s a really weird feeling to read that your friend’s death is trending. (!) I don’t think I like this feeling. Maybe to some people it’s meaningful, but not to me. I was going to write more about how I’ve been checking Facebook multiple times a day in the days since, but I’m too tired to relive that experience right now.

These ideas are underdeveloped and not polished. But this post documents where I am in the process right now. While looking for sources I came across this article about how people mourn the deaths of their internet friends. It doesn’t describe what I’m going through, but I thought it was interesting enough to share.

I found a bunch of other papers about expressing grief on social media, but wasn’t able to read through them all without being overwhelmed by my own emotions. Also because they were behind a paywall I couldn’t access even with my IIT credentials. But there were a bunch of articles that sounded relevant by their abstracts so if anyone can find me a copy I’d be very grateful.

Brubaker, J. R., Hayes, G. R., & Dourish, P. (2013). Beyond the Grave: Facebook as a Site for the Expansion of Death and Mourning. The Information Society, 29(3), 152–163. http://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2013.777300

Getty, E., Cobb, J., Gabeler, M., Nelson, C., Weng, E., & Hancock, J. T. (2011). I Said Your Name in an Empty Room: Grieving and Continuing Bonds on Facebook. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5a6e/4cfd21895046e22a9f13741b7f2ea3a599f6.pdf

Gibbs, M., Meese, J., Arnold, M., Nansen, B., & Carter, M. (2015). #Funeral and Instagram: death, social media, and platform vernacular. Information, Communication & Society, 18(3), 255–268. http://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.987152

Lingel, J. (2013). The Digital Remains: Social Media and Practices of Online Grief. The Information Society, 29(3), 190–195. http://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2013.777311

Marwick, A., & Ellison, N. B. (2012). “There Isn’t Wifi in Heaven!” Negotiating Visibility on Facebook Memorial Pages. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(3), 378–400. http://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2012.705197

Pennington, N. (2013). You Don’t De-Friend the Dead: An Analysis of Grief Communication by College Students Through Facebook Profiles. Death Studies, 37(7), 617–635. http://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2012.673536