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?