Tag Archives: facebook

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“7 Reasons Not to Be an Organ Donor”

I was scrolling through my News Feed on Facebook, and I came across this post by the Odyssey:

Screenshot of Facebook post

“7 Reasons Not to Be an Organ Donor”

I stopped scrolling. As a student in this class and as an organ donor myself, I was intrigued to discover the reasons for denouncing organ donation. So, I clicked. And this is what I saw:

Screenshot of Odyssey article

“Actually, there aren’t any.”

I chastised myself for succumbing to click bait, but I marveled at the brilliance of the tactic.

This post attracts organ donors like myself because it challenges our beliefs. I wanted to know how someone could possibly come up with seven valid reasons for not becoming an organ donor. Yet, it also appeals to those who are not organ donors by validating their decision.

The article begins with statistics on the disparity between the number of people who support organ donation and the number of people who demonstrate their support by donating their organs. In the United States, the demand for organs is much greater than the supply. People die every day waiting on the organ transplant list.

In an attempt to amend these inequalities, the author dispels seven rumors that might persuade one to not become an organ donor.

Two rumors addressed in the article were previously discussed in class: “If doctors know that I am an organ donor, they won’t try to save my life as hard” and “Doctors might not be 100 percent sure that I am dead.” These rumors are not unfounded. Instances of supposedly brain dead patients that “wake up” during organ harvesting do exist, like this woman from New York. However, laws and practices are now in place to prevent these gross oversights from happening again.

Another common rumor, one that I even believed myself, is that organ donation precludes you from having an open casket funeral. If Americans harbor the misconception that organ donation will interfere with customary funeral practices, I can understand the decision to not become donors. The challenge, nonetheless, will be to educate people on the realities of organ donation.

I think this article is an excellent first step in informing the public about organ donation. In this age of technology, many people formulate their opinions from posts such as this one on Facebook. While the argument becomes too emotional at times, it is backed by evidence. To continue learning about other common rumors about organ donation, read the original article here.

 

 

References:

theodysseyonline.com/reasons-organ-donor

abcnews.go.com/…ctors-remove-organs/story

Death on Social Media: A Virtual Living-Dead

When the creators of Facebook first produced a social networking website designed to connect people to people, they simultaneously produced an opportunity to connect people to the deceased. While death on Facebook is only one medium in which recent technological advancement is problematic, its impact is felt in a variety of forms.

Facebook has altered the ways in which death is processed, communicated, and shared. It is a virtual reality that resembles a sort of living reality in problematic ways. Individuals navigate informing groups of people on the death of a loved one through status updates, sharing pictures, and writing on the deceased profile wall. It often elicits an immediate response from individuals whose lives were touched by the deceased in one way or another. It provides a medium for individuals who know the deceased to express their condolences apart from the mortuary ritual, and gives those who do not attend it a place to grieve within a virtual community. Another layer of complexity is added when people interpret others’ Facebook posts or comments on the deceased without knowledge of their relationship to the deceased. While posting something for one person may be cathartic, another may view it as disrespectful. This is one area where individual worldviews can be disputed.

In my experience, posting comments about the cause of death is extremely controversial especially in cases of unexpected deaths. This leads to a number of questions on what is considered respectful to the deceased in virtual forums. Facebook has a peculiar paradoxical quality of seeming both private and public. If we take this problem further we encounter how the mere existence of the deceased profile affects the living.

Facebook acknowledges these kinds of issues by providing information in its Help Center.

Societies develop rituals to deal with the process of death. Is Facebook beneficial or detrimental in allowing unlimited access to grief and mourning?