Here's the hard cold fact. Death is a part of life. We will all go somehow at some time. Loss and grief are also part of life. Try as we might, we can't avoid them either.
Robin Williams died on August 11, 2014, twenty days ago. Since most who did not personally know him have moved on, I thought it would be appropriate now to write about some impressions I had at the time. I wasn't the only one who considered this. Amy Webb wrote a piece for Slate.com about it and she got me thinking about my own response to grief and social media.
When the announcement came about Williams' passing, I was immediately struck by how Twitter and Facebook went crazy with postings.Why? What were we sharing? Grief? Or a desire to be involved in a big news event?
When we post about the loss of a loved one, what do we expect? Is it fair to assume that everyone will grieve the same way we do? Do we really think that people we have never met care about our loss? Do we have a right to criticize how other people grieve?
Sometimes events should be private. The loss of someone we loved should be one of those times. I never want to rate the appropriateness of my grief by the number of likes on a Facebook posting. There is no possible way that a Facebook friend, who is often a writer or fan I don't know well if at all, can understand how I feel. They are unique personalities unto themselves with different experiences and cultures. The way they handle loss will be different from the way I do.
A few years ago, my family suffered a great loss at the holiday season. Close friends rallied around. They telephoned, they took me to dinner, and they supported me as I struggled through the emotional jungle. There is no possible way a click or 140 characters can replace the level of caring I found in a crowded restaurant, a miniature Christmas tree, or someone going through bags of clothing with me.
Death is a deeply personal experience. When it enters your life, you will want to, but you won't be able to, whisk your feelings away with a click or a tweet. And if you try to do that, you will be left devoid of comfort. Social media is great for some things. It may make you feel a part of something important. But it's no substitute for holding onto your teddy bear, or your best friend, or your mate and sobbing the pain away.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Gibbs and the IRS
Everything on the Net is for public consumption. This should be one of Gibbs' rules. You NCIS watchers know what I mean.
This is something I've been told since I first got access to email back in the technological dark ages. The company's IT folk constantly reminded us not to put something into an email that we didn't want the entire world to read. They told us there are no secrets in the electronic world. Digital communication is truly for the masses. I heard this warning long before lawyers began subpoenaing email records or human resource departments started scanning Facebook posts.
Email doesn't go directly from my computer to yours. It passes through several other computers along the way. At each stop, it can be (and is) read by technicians, programmers, and others who are bored or troubleshooting. I heard many stories from night operators who said they read emails during their breaks.
The IRS was in the news on April 10th but it wasn't due to the approach of tax day. The ACLU obtained documents indicating that the IRS doesn't think email is private. (Read about it here.) For that matter, Facebook chats and other forms of digital communication aren't either. My reaction is "yeah, so?"
Where has the ACLU been? If they wanted to argue this, they should have started about thirty years ago. Fortunately for them, they have powerful allies who will fight the fight for them. The companies behind digital communication (Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to name just a few) want prying eyes wandering through their emails less than we do. So changes to the law have been presented in both the House and Senate. Warrants will be required before the IRS or any other agency can obtain certain digital material.
Regardless of the legislative outcome, I'll stick with my own version of a Gibbs' rule. If it can be read by a computer, it can be read by anyone at any time.
This is something I've been told since I first got access to email back in the technological dark ages. The company's IT folk constantly reminded us not to put something into an email that we didn't want the entire world to read. They told us there are no secrets in the electronic world. Digital communication is truly for the masses. I heard this warning long before lawyers began subpoenaing email records or human resource departments started scanning Facebook posts.
Email doesn't go directly from my computer to yours. It passes through several other computers along the way. At each stop, it can be (and is) read by technicians, programmers, and others who are bored or troubleshooting. I heard many stories from night operators who said they read emails during their breaks.
The IRS was in the news on April 10th but it wasn't due to the approach of tax day. The ACLU obtained documents indicating that the IRS doesn't think email is private. (Read about it here.) For that matter, Facebook chats and other forms of digital communication aren't either. My reaction is "yeah, so?"
Where has the ACLU been? If they wanted to argue this, they should have started about thirty years ago. Fortunately for them, they have powerful allies who will fight the fight for them. The companies behind digital communication (Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to name just a few) want prying eyes wandering through their emails less than we do. So changes to the law have been presented in both the House and Senate. Warrants will be required before the IRS or any other agency can obtain certain digital material.
Regardless of the legislative outcome, I'll stick with my own version of a Gibbs' rule. If it can be read by a computer, it can be read by anyone at any time.
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