On Death and Dying and Social Media

My father-in-law passed away yesterday. I'm assuming that as part of the notifying of relatives, as well as for emotional support, my mother-in-law called her sister.  Her sister then notified her children so Ellen's cousins found out fairly quickly.  It was shortly thereafter that the cousins started posting about it on Facebook.

While I appreciate the use of social media to express condolences and offer reflections, especially from those who live so far away, it presented a problem.  The speed at which the posts were made meant that they were posted faster than the notifications.  Because of his job, we hadn't been able to get in touch with Iain to let him know that his grandfather had died before it hit social media.  (Same for our niece in Vermont.)

But, bad as I believe that to be, it wasn't the worst.  In one of the posts, the cousin actually tagged my wife.  Tagging her means that the post will show up in her timeline where it will be seen by all her friends. Instead of Ellen getting to decide when she was ready to share the news with her friends and co-workers, her cousin made that decision for her.

Lest you think this is just an exercise in hypotheticals (we did talk to Iain before he found out on Facebook, and who knows which of Ellen's friends saw/read the post), this is where I come into the story.  From the time we were notified of the death, Ellen started packing and I then drove her the two and a half hours so she could be with her mom. I had planned on notifying my family once we got there.  About a half hour before we arrived I got a text from my sister asking if Ellen's dad had died. So my family found out about it from the social media post.

Ellen says I shouldn't be so angry about this, but I am. We have a saying in our house (that, ironically, came from Ellen's family) - "that's not your news to share".  In this case, as the extended family, that's not their news to share.  When my mom died last year, there were no social media posts about it until after Susan, Andy, and I had been able to craft an "official" announcement that we posted on Mom's page.

Here's what I'm saying - can we have a little consideration for people's emotional state, and agree that if you are not immediate family, you refrain from posting about someone's death until the family does? And for god's sake, don't tag them without their permission.