My guess is that it would be worse with a child - some people tag their child’s picture as themselves, so as far as the algorithm is concerned, that was a popular picture of him.
This is true, but the comment I was responding to went further than that. I suppose part of the reason I’m a little confused as to the reaction is that I do share painful experiences on Facebook with my friends and many of my friends on Facebook are the same. As I mentioned before, one of my Facebook friends wrote a number of posts about coming to terms with his son’s death. A good friend of mine almost died and was practically a skeleton for months; he also had a Facebook group where people could learn about how he was doing. Where it comes to this kind of summary, I see it as similar to a condensed form of the Christmas letter from friends. It’s not about boasting of how wonderful your year was, but rather it’s an overview of good and bad times that you’ve had.
I agree that in this case, the presentation was overly pushy and insensitive. I got a ready-made summary yesterday when I opened Facebook, when it would have been good to have been asked first if I even wanted it. The summary filled most of the page and you had to choose to minimise/cancel it rather than getting a normal notification offering it. In this guy’s case the picture of his daughter would have been front and centre when he logged on, so I can imagine it would have been quite unwelcome. I’d agree that a simple notification would have been more acceptable (especially in this case).
Oh, yea, I don’t think they necessarily should because sometimes they would be wrong.
Really, I think, more of a “this is something that happens now” for people who use social media.
Hardly the only way people are reminded of dead loved ones for some time after they go.
Sorry, I was talking about the person who had responded to you, without calling them by name. It’s a regular troll who gets outraged all the time. Best not to name the troll…and that troll is hardly alone.
In the cases I’m aware of, the answer is, “No.” I have two friends, now dead, and every year Facebook asks to wish them happy birthday on their timelines. It may well be that their family could have changed this, but that’s what I’m seeing.
Did you read his original post? He was pretty clear. He doesn’t have sympathy for someone he assumes to spend all day on Facebook rather than mourning his lost child. HE was the one making assumptions. Not me. Clearly you have a bias toward me, but are you aware that does not make everything I say wrong?
He literally claimed this guy he doesn’t even know spends all day on Facebook rather than mourning for his lost child. That’s actually what he said.
I can’t believe people really defend really terrible, anti-social behavior like this. I really don’t get it.
You know what’s kinda weird? You sure spend a lot of time on social media (here – this is, in fact, social media!) – for someone who judge’s a complete stranger’s use of social media. What’s up with that? Also you never answered my question: How do you know he spends all his time on Facebook rather than mourning his child? Since that’s exactly what you said. Word for word. And how should he act? Since you are clearly the know-all be-all of his life and how he should respond to mourning the death of his child. Wonder if you’ll answer me. (Probably not.)
I’ll have to look for that, as I find the reminders… off, I guess. For one of my former friends, I wouldn’t presume to do anything, but, for the other, I’m probably as appropriate a person as any. Thanks.
This happened to a friend of mine. Her husband died unexpectedly, suddenly. She did take to Facebook afterward, posting old photos, resurrecting dead posts with funny things he’d said, talking about him because that’s how she dealt with it all. And then"It was a wonderful year!" Or, the crappiest one ever.
Good. My extended friend network had a fairly violent and unexpected suicide take place in the past year, and although I wasn’t close to the person, I’ve been cringing thinking about those who were and what this “feature” would stir up.
…and now Eric gets to see the Facebook ‘Your Year’ banner with his daughter’s face on essentially any/every tech site he browses over the next few days…
I had this happen on a lesser scale- my Facebook year in review started off with a pic of a cat that passed away this year, Boo. Getting that in my feed a few times soured me to Facebook’s algorithm pretty quickly.
