Sometimes I look up dead people on Facebook. Not, say, Thomas Edison or Washington Irving or George Washington Carver. If they had Facebook, I wouldn’t be here– but that’s a different story.

But maybe I’m watching the six o’clock news and there’s a story on how Randy Rappelstein, a junior at Rutgers, crashed his RAV-4 into a lightpole. Hop on over to Facebook, type in Randy’s name, and boom: a picture of him at his Sig Ep formal with his date cropped out. A remnant of his life when death seemed an abstract possibility.

It’s a creepy habit of mine, yes, but the Facebook has emerged as a virtual graveyard for such real - life situations, and it’s hard not to pay attention to the amount of dead matter on the site. Read More »