Is it odd to have dead people still on your Facebook friends?

[GingerNutMe]

So I have a couple of friends/family members that have sadly passed away but never taken them off my friendship list on Facebook. Is this normal, is it reasonable?

Whilst family can apply to Facebook for a profile to be closed I get the impression that it is laborious and often doesn't happen. I believe Facebook have a process where you can nominate someone on your behalf to deal with it so assume this is the better way but how many people do?

Just feels wrong for me to 'unfriend' these people but also feels strange to have dead peoples profiles appear.

Thoughts on a postcard ..........................

My aunt died last year and her profile was pretty swiftly taken down by her family, I actually found it quite upsetting, all of a sudden she was gone and any traces of her were gone too. Strange situation though, she was my mum's half sister and I had never met her in person due to her living in a war-torn country that we couldn't visit, but she's always been in my life, we used to write to each other and had the occasional satellite phone conversation. It was wonderful when we could speak to each other on FB and see each others photo's of children etc. If her account had been left up I wouldn't have unfriended her, no way.

I have an old school friend on FB who passed away relatively young (mid 20’s) from a sports related injury. His family keep his profile active and a lot of people contribute with messages at birthdays etc, and add photos & memories throughout the year. I assume it’s a bit of comfort to them that he’s not forgotten 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think it's one of the upsides of FB that memories keep circulating and I'll not be unfriending recently deceased FIL. If his partner decides she wants to shut his account then fair enough but I don't think she will.
I actually created a page for my stillborn DS and he comments on DHs yearly fundraisers for baby loss charities in his memory and sometimes at Christmas and birthdays.
It's my way of making sure he still has a toehold on earth and he's not forgotten about.

I still have my Dad, grandparents and a couple of friend’s phone numbers in my contacts list despite them being dead. The numbers won’t even belong to them anymore but it would feel wrong to delete them. I don’t have any dead friends/ family on social media but only because nobody I’ve lost had social media accounts, if I were to lose someone though I definitely wouldn’t delete them from my social media.

I'm a FB refusenik, so only have RL friends, but I can't bring myself to delete my late partner's number from my phone.

Not weird at all. I have one school friend on Facebook that died a few years ago and it’s lovely to see their page being tagged around anniversaries and special events. She still means a lot to many people. I have another friend who died on Instagram and I want to be able to go back through her photos when I want to think of her.

My mum just died. She loved Facebook. She loved posting funny things and making us all laugh. I will forever keep her on there although I can't bring myself to look at it right now. I'm not erasing her sense of humour . Also it might mean all her messages to me dissappear.

So do I. I’ll never delete it.

I don't have it anymore but when I did I had a few people who had passed away on it.

I have friends on social media who have died. I write a remembrance for their birthdays. It’s always good to think on them when a post pops up on Facebook memories.

It's not a laborious process to memorialise an account, just requires a scanned death certificate. It's more likely loved ones can't really face it. But no, it's not weird and anyone who thinks it is must have an uncomfortable relationship with death imo. It's the only way you can retain access to their photos and memories of them.

I have friends who have died and occasionally a Facebook memory comes up where we were chatting about nothing, and it’s lovely to remember all the silly conversations we used to have and how funny they were. It keeps them in my thoughts in a really positive way. It’s bittersweet, but ultimately I’m glad to have the memories triggered.

I took one lady off just after her first anniversary. Just because it made me sad thinking about her.
Someone else I knew was there for about 8 years.

It's sort of nice if you have shared memories to keep them.

My friends' daughter posts on her mum's Facebook page on her birthday every year. I think it's a nice memorial for all of her friends to remember her together.

Yeah I find it weird and sad. But then I can’t bring myself to delete their numbers from
my phone, either.

I don't think there's anything odd. I have a friend who passed away still on it, I look at their messages and posts and their profile from time to time, I find it really comforting when I miss them the most.

I have come across this a fair few times. They are your friends/family and will always be part of your life and memories. I don't think it odd.

My friend died three years ago and on each of her birthdays since I’ve seen a dozen or so messages wishing her a great birthday etc. That makes me very uncomfortable as they can’t have known her very well. That’s in spite of several ‘missing you’ messages.

I wouldn’t delete her as a friend.

i have tried several times to remove my dad after he died, thought i had the right password from his little book,but no right,have sent facebook a message no luck.my friend tried to remove her dad after he died again same problem its not that easy

I didn’t know this - is it a recent thing? When my DM died I requested to have her profile removed (she only really set it up to play Words with Friends during her treatment so it wasn’t like it had loads of memories or pictures to lose). The process was very straightforward, they sent a message to the registered email on the account and if they didn’t get a reply within a certain time they removed the profile. There was no mention of turning it into a public memorial page, the whole thing just ceased to exist (same as when someone deletes their account), but that was over 10 years ago now so maybe it’s changed.

In a similar vein I’ve got a few friends and family no longer with us in my phone contacts, I can’t bring myself to delete them.

My uncle died suddenly a few years ago. Even though he didn't have anything on his Facebook, I liked having him as a friend still, for the memories and to see the stupid things he comment on my posts.

Someone (I suspect his partner's daughter) has removed me as his friend for some reason. No one else - just me. I've no idea why, and I know it makes no difference, but it makes me sad.

I have my Nan on FB 2 years after her death she raised me and I often send her messages on there just to update her. It makes me feel better.

Sorry, I was referring to the memorial setting rather than deletion.

a friend did it for his wife and it was described as a “simple memorial page” but in fact turned everything public and no chance for him to remove photos any longer.

It why people opt to just leave pages as is rather than memorialise them.

I had a relative die unexpectedly while my wedding was being planned. I couldn't take them off the guest list so just coded them as not attending. Defriending a fb friend would feel similar. I lost a fb friend last year and left them on. We weren't particularly close and they weren't a prolific fb poster, but their spouse used fb to share funeral arrangements and it was good to be able to pay my respects and represent that chapter of their life, as did a number of other long, lost friends of that era.