social network with over 500 million users have installed practices that are changing the way we interact socially, how to treat private and public, our idea of \u200b\u200b I , and even - theme of this writing, the way to bond with death. Inaugurates a metaphysics where he once considered "real " discussed in the interaction between virtual and non virtual.
Since the invention of Facebook in the year 2004 has very clear that the way social ties are having a "digital turn " . Of course, the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg was not the first to play the game of virtual friendship. experiences now seem "moderate " , if not " overcome " , but sites like My Space Fotolog and to name the most famous in Latin America have preceded him. No But the immediate and collective virtual interaction between networks " friends " is a practice becomes a habit and making sizeable with the advent of Facebook.
This interactive virtual magma applicant in which we deal today, how death treats user? Facebook "We are proposing another way of relating to " death "? Or give us tools to deny ?
When the friend - Facebook dies
social networking sites on the Internet allow us to " see " on display the words of friendly people , its " thoughts " verbalized, but also its links, pictures and comments. What " likes " , the events I attend, the interest groups that has joined, among other things. As interactive viewers and even co-creators of our friend's profile on Facebook, we - if we do not have locked-add our own comments, tag photos and videos, write on your wall and above all: have all this available to our friend even when not connected to the site.
Now suppose that the user of Facebook has ceased to exist. What happens then to your virtual life ?
may take at least two things: 1 - Facebook notify family members of death. 2 - or anyone else to do. And if the latter occurs, we'll see what happens ...
digital Cemetery
Facebook has a strategy to keep the system in the deceased users. This is creating a memorial page , which has a limited number of applications to preserve the memory of the deceased. This is effective in cases where relatives or friends died inform users and give evidence that the death occurred.
When notified that a user has died, Facebook gives you choices: either delete the profile, or keep it as a memorial . In this second case block sections and limited the use of your account (you can not add new friends, for example). Also revokes the statement listing the name in the search or use it to offer services for social interaction.
is a posthumous profile of activity. relatives It can write on the wall, upload photos, videos, to quote the late and comment. Access to these sites is private, limited to relatives.
Dead "live"
noteworthy case occurs when one user complaint died. This is where the account created in Facebook is able to survive its creator and extended in different interactions, indefinitely. A kind of new age immortality. And speaking of immortality, I remember Borges, Jorge Luis, and haiku No. 10 shown in the figure .
Today, I want to say something like: The Man Died, Facebook does not know, survives the user.
So we realize that our words are hung in the starry sky of the Web by threatening to stay even when we move on to better life.
Unless the death report to " system" each of us is a live user, a potential consumer, an active page, a search engine data for different social advertising business.
But Is not this show continued the modus operandi what we call "culture " ? To wit: just as the works of countless men throughout history have been circulating in spite - or because - of the death of its creator, Facebook users posted their dies and leaves " profile" , textual and visual construction / digital at your Facebook friends. In that case, Facebook would be practiced only an exacerbation of the possibility of " significance" that brings rigged the cultural fact " post " . What befalls the creator of a user account when you die is that you can not split into virtual / no virtual, but has been confined to the virtual indefinitely. This also happens when an author dies, has always happened. Similar things happen with the book, published articles, films or videos in which they appear, the pictures.
The novelty of the significance beyond the life that gives us this network is that the interaction with "Users " transfiguration or bytes, is taking place, but takes a different character: it is the interaction of elements of the Facebook system itself together as part of the profile of a user whose issuer and subject does not exist in the way " umplugged " . The system behaves like a moving hipersubjetividad.
So, today you may experience a rare interaction with the author-work variable. User's friends died - friends who are not more than other users arming the slug subjective / friendly large-scale - can continue "dialogue " with it and even talking to each other within the profile of the missing comments and publications setting wall, tagging photos. In short, the show continues. Should it continue?
organic We say: The bottle has been a germination and it matters little that the primitive bean is no longer in sight.
messages as " Today we celebrated your birthday, see you soon .... I want " ; " Do you remember the advice you gave me?, Well, put them into practice and now I thank you ... see you in heaven " , are common in active profiles of users dead.
We are not the user who invented
As concluded: avatars umplugged our existence are not relevant for this type of social networks. Yes they are, however, our alter ego Virtual . What we publish is a version of ourselves, and needless to say, independent of us.
In this sense we are not our users. There is no identity between real self and the user is important because the latter is a vector of web activity.
For a system designed as links subjectivities in constant reproduction and dispersal, the track star from User dead is actively seeking an item, an entity googleable, a platform for interaction. We bytes indefinitely generating web life until a blackout us part.
* Many thanks to Sole Mendilarhazu Clo Orqueda and the input data that was very useful for this test.
