I had an odd thing happen yesterday. As I was trolling the posts on Facebook after posting the link to my blog, I came across a post from a good friend of mine. While we don't see each other nearly as much as we used to mostly due to our crazy lives, I still consider her a good friend that I have known for nearly a decade now. Essentially, the post notified the world that her boyfriend had passed away a few days earlier and it also gave the dates and times of the wake and funeral. To be honest, I was a little shocked that I found out about it in the manner I did. Its not like I was one of her friends who would have immediately received a call about the death of someone close, but I guess I figured I would have found out some other way than on Facebook. Thinking about it after the fact, I don't know if I would have known about it until I saw her next and asked how her boyfriend was, just to be awkwardly told that he had passed away. Regardless of my feelings on the matter, it seems that everything important, or at least some of the major important events of people's lives are now only shared on Facebook. There is an assumption made by most people that everyone around them should know the details of their lives based upon their Facebook pages. Frankly, I don't have the time to scroll through every one of my friends' pages just to keep up with what is happening in their lives. In addition, I prefer to be told over the phone or at least in at one to one text message about something important that happens. But that is me. However, I must admit that I too fall into that group at times that assumes people know details about my life based upon Facebook. As such, I am the occasional hypocrite. Am I happy about it? Not exactly, but what is one to do when the lives of most of one's friends are governed and seemingly controlled by an addiction to Facebook. I could probably tell you all the favorite eateries of certain friends just by checking Facebook. I could tell you how often they work out, where they work out, where they travel to, and all this without having a conversation with them. In essence, the art of conversation is dying. Conversation is not so much anymore about the important things in one's life, those are covered by Facebook, but rather about the inconsequential details that end up boring us cutting any conversation short. That is, unless we have worked on having conversations with others and can still maintain a conversation.
But back to my friend and her boyfriend's death. When I saw the post on Facebook, my immediate thought was, what the hell happened? I had only met him a few times, but he seemed like a really good kid and from what I could tell, the two of them were extremely happy together. In fact, I think it was one of the longer relationships that my friend has actually had in a long time. I scrolled through all the comments and I am pretty sure that every single one was offering condolences. Well, I actually thought about leaving my own condolences online, but then thought better of it. How trite and meaningless are those condolences? People are already scrolling through Facebook, distracted by every single post, update, viral video, and then to post a quick condolence to a friend who lost a boyfriend seems overly trite. I couldn't leave one online for everyone to see. Plus, I wanted to know what happened. So instead, I turned off the computer, went to my phone, and sent her a text offering condolences and also asking what happened. Was it a car accident? Alcohol related? Terminal illness that no one knew about? I had no clue, but with someone that young, the possibilities are endless and they all went through my mind. It turns out it was none of the above, but rather an accident that happened while the were doing what they loved; hiking. I don't know the details and at this point I won't press my friend for them, but from what I gather, her boyfriend was on a tricky part of a trail, lost his footing, and went over. A horrible way to go, but at least it was while doing what they loved. As for the whole notification on Facebook, it is what it is. Society changes and we can either resist the change or go with it. We may not like where it takes us, but that doesn't mean we have to change everything about the way we do things ourselves. We can still hold on to the "old school" way of telling people good news or as it turns out bad news, or we can embrace the long reaching hand of Facebook to notify everyone. As for myself, there are times when utilizing Facebook to notify friends and family members is a lot easier than finding everyone's number and reaching out on a personal basis with them. Yes, it may be the easy way out, but in this day and age of little to no time to do anything, sometimes we have to take that easy way. We may not like it, but we will be left behind if we totally turn our backs on it.
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