These days, Facebook breaks even the worst kind of news

On Friday, Sept. 2, junior Abby Ehrenberg made plans with friend Gloria Dawes, then a senior at Ohio University, to commence fall quarter with a vegetarian hot dog from O'Betty's Red Hot! in Athens.

Two days later, Ehrenberg logged on to Facebook to find statuses displaying "R.I.P. Gloria" consuming her newsfeed; Dawes had been in a car accident and passed away Sunday, Sept. 4.

"I found out through Facebook… It blows my mind that you can find out about someone's death through a social network," Ehrenberg said.

Along with its status as the primary social networking site in the world, Facebook has become everything from a baby book for proud new parents to a contemporary, interactive obituary. Dawes' sudden death was among a handful that have rocked the OU campus in recent years, its aftermath an example of how social networking has revolutionized the simple act of mourning. For many, Facebook is the first informant of a death.

Alex Johnson, restaurant, hotel and tourism major, said he first found out about his dorm-mate's death on Facebook. His dorm-mate, Bryan Barbin, passed away their freshman year.

"I noticed all of these people giving their respect toward Bryan on his wall. I didn't really know what to think at first," Johnson recalled. "I thought it was possibly some prank he may have crafted, until I read this link that my roommate posted on his wall which described the incident that occurred."

Some students think finding out about a friend or acquaintance's death via Facebook notification will become the norm. Alex Cole, environmental geography and history major at OU, who also found out about Barbin's death through Facebook, noted that it's an eerie way to learn of a death.

"This is becoming a regular way of finding out about a friend's death," Cole said. "It seems to be the natural instinct to post condolences and memories on someone's Facebook wall after they are deceased… I have noticed that people post on deceased peoples' walls as if they are talking to the dead. It is kind of strange, and somehow creepy. They say things that traditionally would have been said only at graveside. I think in a way it is almost replacing that experience of visiting a friend's grave in the months or years after their death."

In 2009, Facebook debuted memorial pages meant to immortalize the deceased, after realizing how tragic a "Suggestion" to connect with a deceased friend could be. The feature removes deceased friends from "Suggestions," changes their privacy settings to unsearchable, removes contact information and status updates, and prevents anyone from logging onto the deceased's personal page in the future.

EHRENBERG HAD THE MISFORTUNE to find out about another friend's death via Facebook later in November. A hometown friend from Marietta, 20-year-old Jaleayah Davis, passed away in a car crash that was ruled "suspicious" by local authorities; in response, family members created a "Justice for Jaleayah" Facebook page to gather clues about the events surrounding her death. The page, which has more than 2,500 "likes" from family, friends and strangers, is filled with updated information about Davis' last whereabouts. The posts are littered with local references that are largely indecipherable to the out-of-towner; one post claimed, "It doesn't take a genius to see where (evidence) points."

A friend posted (with misspellings and haphazard punctuation preserved), "We know jaleayah was with (apparent names deleted in this article) at the nip. She last seen at the nip 325am. She left the nip with them and about 20 min later she was murdered; it doesn't take a genious to see were it points." Other friends of the page added their input to the accusation, such as "If I were being called a murderer, I'd threaten people too… smh" as well as additional information regarding the people who apparently were accused.

Ehrenberg said she checks Davis' Facebook page five times daily for new information on Davis' death, and that she appreciates the ability to communally investigate, as well as reminisce about deceased friends through Facebook.

"How else can you get 500 people trying to solve a crime in one location?" asked Brooke. "You can scroll down for the past four years – if you have that kind of time –- and read stuff they were writing four years ago, because you're never going to have that from them again."

Cole also described a situation that made him think differently about the ability to view a dead person's Facebook pages, where the widow of a deceased friend used her late husband's account occasionally. He said that while he understood she did not want to delete the account, it still made him uncomfortable seeing updates from the woman's deceased husband. In another experience with a deceased Facebook friend, Cole posted on a friend's wall that he hadn't seen him recently and was answered with a message from the boy's sister, informing Cole of his death.

"On one hand, it seems a natural outlet for people in the mourning process, but it does create some awkward situations. I never want to find out about a close friend's death via Facebook. It just does not seem right," Cole said.

OU junior Laura Scheer avoided Facebook when she first heard the news of her friend and OU student Yaara Mashmoor's death last Nov. 3. She did not want to see the photos and the posts about Yaara, she said, but now she thinks the memorial page dedicated to Yaara provides more benefits than heart-wrenching reminders.

"These Facebook memorial pages are like a card with infinite space that can be sent to everyone who knew and loved the person who passed. I think Facebook has become an outlet where people can share their memories of loved ones with a large group of others who are feeling the same pain," Scheer said.