Life (and Death) in the Times of Social Media

Is a child born if you don’t put its picture up on the internet? Perhaps not.

Have you really paid your respects to a deceased unless your social media is updated with a heart-wrenching caption along with a picture of you both hugging? It is doubtful, too.

Or that is what it seems to me these days.

I enjoy the sight of those cuddly, wriggly babies as much as anyone else. In fact, I constantly pester friends and cousins for pictures of their newborns, and pore over their collection of the little ones decked up in tiny sunglasses and pink frills. That way, you can easily keep track of what the next generation look like, and how cute they act. Always a useful and heartwarming information to have.

But here I am talking of the more – for lack of a better word – disconcerting pictures. I was actually alarmed when a picture of a newborn, complete with the placenta and umbilical cord, popped up on my newsfeed. The child, not surprisingly, was a messy glob of blood and white matter. The mother looked disoriented, making a feeble attempt to smile for the camera. Childbirth must indeed be the most beautiful feeling in the world, a moment to treasure forever. Also understandable that the parents would want to capture this moment, and flip over their album (or, more correctly, scroll through iPhoto) to reach this particularly poignant memory of overwhelming joy.

A thing to ponder about, though, is that once uploaded on the internet, these pictures are going to be there forever. Even if deleted, they will be lurking just around the corner, begging for someone to discover them. Fifteen years later, will the child really thank its parents for displaying its chaotic birth to all and sundry – including their first crush? I am not even close to the couple, they are merely acquaintances, and they still thought it prudent to share their extremely private moment with everyone in their circle, including me. I am in no position to judge the contents of anyone's social media, but perhaps they could just have bundled up the child before exhibiting it to the world? For the infant’s own sake if not for ours?

This was an extreme example which actually prompted me to write, but such samples abound everywhere. The child with private parts exposed, laid down to sunbathe. The toddler with drool literally dripping down its front, and an extremely grubby shirt to vouch for it. Again, not commenting on the parenting skills, for kids will dirty themselves in an instant – concerned more about the world peeping in at the not-so-glorious moments of the innocent one. A decade down the line, these kids are going to be highly embarrassed of these pictures, and some of the more ungainly pictures might even end up on troll sites like awkwardpictures.com. A lot of us, even in this generation, have a collection of such nerve wracking pictures. We know how off putting it can be to someone who is growing up, trying to appear cool before their peers, to be let down by these silly photographs. But we at least have the power to keep them hidden away from prying eyes and relish them in solitary amazement. But unfortunately, not this bunch of babies.

Now for paying respects to the dead online – particularly if they are not immediate family.

Maybe we ought not to think only of ourselves and our relation to the deceased, but of the family they left behind. More effective and kinder than immediately putting up their picture and adorning it with a RIP, would be to reach out to the grieving ones. I know this because I have experienced it, and also watched dear ones being pained at the sight of others writing long eulogies and condolences, when they are just grappling with the process of healing. Instead of writing a whole lot about an experience with the deceased, what will provide strength to their family is talking to them in private, sharing feelings, offering hope and empathy. Everyone has their own thoughts on how this should be done. Some family members might be able to complete their healing process only by sharing their sorrow publicly, which is entirely their prerogative. But the rest of us, let us not make a semi-mockery and perhaps a spectacle of death, let us wait for cues from the closest family to see what they would prefer, and behave likewise. It will be no effort for us, but will mean the whole world to them in their fragile and vulnerable state of mind. It must be even more difficult for the families of celebrities and public personalities, who have to deal with cruel and sometimes crazy people treating the entire thing as a joke. A recent extreme case is Robin William’s daughter being victimized and forced to leave Twitter because of the mean barbs aimed at her and her beloved father.

Another matter, though a little different, is of people putting up graphic imagery, especially of accident victims. These gory pictures suck the happiness and positivity out of plenty of social media users. A lot of these say 'Please share for awareness.' But I wonder what awareness they spread without any context or background information whatsoever. Also, these people were not necessarily careless or reckless, but perhaps merely unlucky. We will never know by just staring at the picture of a hapless girl trapped underneath truck tires – was she not wearing a helmet, had she just tried to overtake the truck on the wrong lane, or was she mercilessly crushed through no fault of hers? Photojournalists and the media would desist from spreading terror by sharing such uncensored and vivid images, we need to follow their principles as responsible citizens. Imagine if it was you who were dead, and the picture of your innards was splayed all over the internet. The emotional trauma it would cause your parents.

The social media was born out of experimentation, we have seen its birth and growth and expansion. Being the first generation of social media users, we are making up the social rules as we go. None of us, not even ‘experts’, can dictate universal social media etiquette. So how are we to behave in the times of life and death? No one knows.

But at least we can practice our discretion – for the sake who have recently arrived, and those who have just departed.