Advanced Essay #3: The Digital Memorial [Antonio DeRock]

The Introduction For The Digital Memorial

My goals for the audience when reading my paper is for them to understand where I am coming from. Introducing my ideas have always been a struggle. My peer reviews believe that my introduction started off strong so I’m glad of that. Being able to find a way to incorporate a memory that is more recent is something I am proud of. In previous essays, I could only think of memories from long ago that I can’t describe as clearly. Another thing I am proud of is the ideas and thoughts that I developed throughout. I need improvement in how I word those ideas and my analysis paragraphs in general. I don’t practice them enough so properly analyzing can be quite challenging for myself.

The Digital Memorial

Death is a part of all of our lives, and how do we go about coping with it? We keep it a secret from the world and make it seem like it is confidential. Societies all around the world have their own means of going about death. In our lives, we tend to not talk about it and don’t accept the reality of the situation. Grieving over something that most of the time is uncontrollable is understandable because it's not easy to hear, especially if they are close to us. With our society heavily based on technology, we have social media and other forms of communication that cause people to lose their social skills easily.

In my life, I have experienced this in the flesh. A few weeks ago I took a leave of absence from school for personal reasons. My grandfather on my mom’s side had passed away. I was unable to accept his passing all the way until the day of the funeral, which was as cold as Antarctica and felt like a part of you was ripped out. The people around us make up a part of ourselves, and he was a part that I didn’t get to see a lot. I haven’t been to a funeral since 2007 when my grandmother and cousin passed away. This all resulted in me not being able to communicate my feelings to my best friend Amaris in person. Every day we went to clean out his apartment along with my brother Jc. This is significant because my mother had to tell him not to post anything on social media since she thought he would be the one to most likely post personal matters.

Ghosts in the Machine is an article that I came across written by Jenna Wortham about how she believes death is perceived in society and how we respond to it. Jenna had a similar story when her father died in 2011 and she didn’t know how to tell others. She froze in the familiar fashion as I did when hearing the news. She believed social media would be the easiest way to spread the news even though she knew this wasn’t the best way to go about it. She stated “Social media seemed to be the quickest way to let people know why I had disappeared and why I would continue to be a ghost in my own way. But it felt wrong, even ghoulish, to announce the death of a parent in the same venue I might a new job”(Wortham "Ghosts in the Machine" 2015).  Businesses and jobs now offer communication behind the screen such as video chats or messaging. When Jenna told people, nobody was gloomy or seemed in the least bit affected by it. People joked around and posted songs which were inappropriate for the situation. Knowing it was odd to post on social media was recognizing the norms that were emplaced upon us when it comes to the topic of death.

Society has grown to the point where we who make it up are unable to express these things that seem so personal to others. I agree with Jenna when she says “The near pervasiveness of social technology has delivered death back into our daily interactions”(Wortham "Ghosts in the Machine" 2015). The problem with this is that it has to be behind a screen. The new norm is to find out about death where we find out the latest fashion trends or he score of sports games. This doesn't seem as prevalent in other countries. The culture in the United States is different, and so are our responses to situations. We all have these norms based on society, especially when it involves a serious matter such as death. Only those who stay to their families’ culture and religion go beyond the norm. Other parts of the world have access to the technology we possess, but they still remember one important thing and that is to have social skills to the extent of expressing important news to family and friends.

As we grow, changing the very society we live in every day, we need to value the moments that are precious to us. If someone passes away we should be able to speak about it and discuss it to live a more positive life. Society currently isn’t at that point, and we don’t know if it will be at that point ever. In the end, we know that our norms for responding to death have been based on our society and those who surround us. Social Media has changed the norms of society for responding to death.

Bibliography

Wortham, Jenna. “Ghosts in the Machine.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Dec. 2015,

www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/magazine/ghosts-in-the-machine.html.

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