The New Etiquette

Email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, My Space, Blogs, Hot Spots, WiFi. I'm not telling any of you something you don't know already. There are lots of ways to communicate.  Not only are we communicating with new technology, we are also communicating in a more or less casual way with, I believe, more people, in some cases with people we hardly know. Yes, lots has changed. Recently though I encountered something that presents a question that I would have never had if I were still communicating by postal letters or by phone.

As a Facebook member I have gathered a list of friends with whom I periodically share information. Some of my facebook friends are family, some are co workers, associates, neighbors or fellow artists. As a "Facebooker" I have developed various levels of contact with my various "friends". Some I have frequent Facebook contact with, and some I only occasionally read and pay attention to what is happening in their daily lives.

One of my earliest "friends" at Facebook was someone who was not very active, but he was a person who in "real" life was someone I respected and admired. As a business associate he was someone with whom I had always felt like I could be honest with and I always felt like he was being honest with me. In short we had a warm, but not close business relationship. I genuinely liked the guy. Last week, while he was on "Spring Break" with his family he was drowned at a Florida beach while trying to assist others who had been caught by a dangerous rip-tide. A true tragedy.

This brings me to the etiquette question. Every day when I sign on to Facebook, there is his picture on my friends list, I can click on his picture and go to his wall and see the posts that were there. No one has removed his profile and maybe no one ever will. So what is the proper action? perhaps doing nothing is the proper action. Would it be right to post something on his wall? I mean the guy died a heroic death, trying to save others...it would seem proper to acknowledge that on his wall? Continuing to see his picture on my list of friends is, I guess, a good reminder that I could do worse than emulating his qualities.