[Air-l] facebook

[Jillana]

I just received this from a student about the facebook at Northwestern 
University:

Begin forwarded message:
>
> speaking of electronic forms of communication... I'm not sure if you 
> heard about it at all, but last weekend an RA in one of the 
> residential halls up north killed himself. I didn't know him, but I 
> found it really interesting how people responded to his death in the 
> online world. People were using his facebook profile as a site for 
> eulogizing him. The sentiments seemed sincere, but to me it seemed 
> trite. I wasn't sure how you felt about.  A friend of mine who knew 
> him because she was an RA also made an interesting comment. She 
> mentioned to me over lunch that she and her other RA friends had 
> decided he was officially dead when he got signed off of AIM. I don't 
> mean to bring so dire a piece of news, but I wasn't sure how to react. 
> The FB brought me closer to him, and showed me explicitly who our 
> mutual friends were, but I never knew him. I'm not too affected by it 
> now, and I meant to email you about it earlier (they've since taken 
> his profile off of FB).
>
>
> Thought it was an interesting use of online space, have you 
> encountered anything like that in your research?
>