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A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

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Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have a dead (as of 15 months ago) friend's facebook account in my contacts in case his family (none of whom I knew) wish to contact people again (it is through accessing his account there that they let us know what we had heard/guessed was true and let us know what the funeral arrangements were. I've had to reduce the size of the "contacts" square on my Windows phone though as the larger sizes it flashes up p…

That probably won't happen unless either he had his FB password written down somewhere in his will (if any), or if FB gives access to accounts of the deceased to relatives - which, I can imagine, would be a big hassle for FB. It wouldn't be a bad idea to take up instructions for one's online life in one's will; Facebook accounts to make announcements on and close, domain names to transfer or disband, projects to clos…

> That probably won't happen

It did happen: he left details of how to get into his key store (which included his facebook password) where family could find it.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#202
Says the guy who spends his effort and brilliance creating a site for entrepreneurs to meet.

When I say things like, "Silicon Valley is a gigantic, worthless circle jerk," articles like this bring it starkly to light. I'm sure this guy feels many things about the death of his colleague, but I doubt he understands the irony of how it conflicts with the waste of his own life on efforts like his startup.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#203

Sadly, this is a byproduct of a passivity in relationships that seems to be more pervasive in the Facebook era. You don't need to reach out to your friends anymore, instead, we just consume each other's broadcasts.

> Sadly, this is a byproduct of a passivity in relationships that seems to be more pervasive in the Facebook era.

How many close friends do you think your grandparents had? How many people did they interact with? This is not a byproduct of passivity, but a byproduct of having a larger pool of "friends."

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you. A girl I dated passed away and her family deleted all of her social media accounts. I was already still coping with losing her in the real world and then she instantly vanished from the online world too. There were pictures of her and me that I no longer have access to, and our conversations now show up with a blank face (Facebook chat was the last way we communicated). The only remnant I could find of he…

Christ... reading that made me feel instantly depressed. Sorry that happened to you man.

Thank you, I appreciate it. It was not my intent to depress you...but if there is anything to take away, it's just don't leave anything unsaid with someone, because you never know when they could be gone...

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my girlfriend died I could not bring myself to remove her from my friends list. She is still there. Her beautiful smile looks at me nearly every day. Some days I am glad to see that little profile picture of hers and others it is painful. Her family could have the account closed I guess but I think they feel the same as me and closing it is like deleting a little part of what we have left of her :(

I don't want to be disrespectful, just sharing my opinion. My dad passed away few months ago and we decided to delete his facebook account. It was too hard for us to see his pictures and suddenly feel the pain all over again. Especially on FB the profile picture shows up in unexpected places.(mutuals friends etc...). For us deleting the account seemed to the right thing to do for the healing process.

It is not disrespectful at all. Everybody heals in different ways. You do what you have to do to help yourself heal. I wish you and your family all the best and hope you find today easier than yesterday.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#206

This is why setting up a deathswitch with a trusted friend to manage your online accounts upon death is critical. Wills are nice and all but I don't trust my close family to be proficient enough to correctly close out my online accounts.

You might want to check out Perpetu. It allows you to specify what happens to your online accounts (e.g. forward all your emails, write your final Facebook post, delete all tweets, etc): www.perpetu.co
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