Every time I send a message into cyberspace, part of my soul dies a little.

About a month ago, I posted this on Facebook, to which a friend responded, “Stamps and envelopes just aren’t that expensive.”

I wrote three letters after that comment. One was to the commenter himself, who failed to respond, another was to a friend who told me in person how much he liked his letter, and the third person followed up with a phone call; not one of them seemed to possess the ability to send a letter via snail mail.

Writing a letter takes time, but I could write thirty letters in the time I spend idling in cyberspace, hopping between interfaces to get my social fix. People are neurotic about being in the loop. The chime of a text, the red flag of a Facebook notification, or the bold print of a fresh email all signify opportunity. The response is biological. They re-affirm that we are social beings and good ones at that.

A letter yields similar results but at an exponentially slower pace. If I spill my heart into someone’s inbox I can learn their level of interest within seconds. After roughly three days of silence I know to move on. As for the letter that was never answered, I;m still waiting.

And it isn’t just about the response. My letter, after all, could have been addressed wrong. Perhaps it got lost in the shuffle. An e-mail or Facebook message provides visual and instant confirmation that it has been sent and received. Maybe that’s why we find it comforting to send an e-message, even when we know we won’t get a response.

My friend Colm joined Facebook six years ago. He has been dead for the past three. Facebook allows families to convert a loved one’s Facebook page to “memorial status,” where only confirmed friends can view and leave messages. For a lot of Colm’s friends, Facebook acts as a Ouija board or a séance leader. There is no chance of a message rebounding with an “out of office” auto reply, or showing up at our door as a bruised and mutilated envelope demanding “return to sender.” For the living, it hints at immortality.

Did Facebook intend to make us immortal? We can speculate that the company wants to guarantee users for life, but what do they gain from our afterlife?

Facebook generates revenue through engagement ads that are interactive messages from various companies. With an engagement ad, a Facebook user can “like” or “become a fan” of a product. They can talk about the products openly and share information about them with friends. Facebook charges companies five dollars per 1,000 views of an engagement ad. Within the first year of executing this plan they made about one hundred million dollars on engagement ads alone. Whatever personal information we’ve posted about ourselves online will still be on the internet – memorial status or not. It is not our personal information, however, that Facebook sells to their advertisers. Advertisers are given aggregate data free of charge so that they can reach the people that might be interested in a certain product. Thus, we are not much help unless we are active on the site.

So why put ourselves through all of this? Memorializing a Facebook page or removing it from the web altogether requires forms and documentation that proves someone has died, much, I imagine, like getting a university to help a student with dues if a parent or guardian dies. Do families really want to clean out the virtual closet of their loved one after cleaning out the real one? And when is it the “right time” to take down a Facebook page?

“Deathswitch” is a website for your online assets (passwords and bank account information) that can be stored until you die and then given to those you trust, functioning like a digital will. The site interacts with you regularly. If you fail to respond for a long enough period of time, it will deduce that you are dead or incapacitated, releasing your information. Most of us would never think to get a “Deathswitch” account, but we have become so digitally inclined that it doesn’t sound so crazy anymore.

Jaron Lanier, author of “You Are Not a Gadget,” believes “It is impossible to work with information technology without also engaging in social engineering.” The moment we indulge the internet we are expanding our capacities as humans. We digitally file rather than remember. We “Google” instead of retaining knowledge and when we’re no longer around to comfort our friends, our Facebook profiles will do it for us.

Rachael Roth is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].