STILL A CLOSED BOOK: No matter how detailed a person's Facebook page is, and how many times you've seen it, you can never truly know the individual behind the profile. -- PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

The news that a classmate of mine from business school had committed suicide came in the most abrupt of manners - on Facebook. Someone who had heard about it updated his status to say he was shocked that our friend, Alex, 37, had deleted his Facebook account before the deed.

Perhaps it was the immediacy of digital digestion, but the shock seemed especially great. Receiving such tragic news in real life is always a jolt; receiving it while taking an Internet break from real life is even more of a stopper.

Talking about it later, I expressed my surprise at the degree of premeditation the Facebook deletion revealed. A friend replied with a remark that startled me: Most suicides tend to be planned carefully and many put their affairs in order beforehand.

I've heard of people who sort out their affairs and write farewell letters before taking their own lives, but this is the first time I've heard of online accounts being closed as part of leave-taking.

Have Internet profiles become so central to our lives that they've come to represent who we are?

Given that I have at least 10 online accounts, I suppose it should not have come as much of a surprise. One or two social networks, a professional network, a couple of blog readers, YouTube, Photobucket, Amazon, Audible, Paypal - they all add up.

On signing up for any of these accounts, you have to choose a user name and list various details in a profile description. Although accounts on commercial websites contain little personal information, the more social profiles can get quite comprehensive.

Tools such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster or Multiply are basically a collection of profiles after all - name, age, education, career, relationship status, religious and political leanings, interests, favourite movies, favourite songs, favourite books, favourite quotes, et cetera.

A few of my Facebook friends have detailed their entire career in their 'personal information'; others describe their personality and hobbies in great detail.

It's digital existentialism. The idea that humans can define their own meaning in life by determining their own existence is quite literal in the online world. The more effort you expend in detailing your Web presence, the more you exist in the World Wide Web.

Blogs, for example, are pure exercises in existentialism: The more you write about yourself, the more you define who you are - rather than let someone else (like the authorities) define you.

I've known people who put great store by how they derived their user names, for example. These range from nicknames they received in childhood to glamourised versions of their ethnic names and literary or pop culture characters with whom they identify.

One blogger I know recently had a self-declared identity crisis trying to choose a different name under which to set up a new LiveJournal account. She's been through three different identities over the course of her three-year blogging career because, she says, there are periods of her life she'd rather just leave behind.

When so much effort is put into distinguishing one's person, it is no wonder that some find it necessary to do the exact opposite.

I went through something of an existentialist Internet crisis myself a few months ago when I was trying to decide what my Facebook profile should reveal. I'd already deleted all the other social networking accounts I'd collected and left idle over the years. Facebook was the only one I felt compelled to maintain since many of my friends are active users there.

Super-high privacy settings aside, I was still hesitant about my profile's posture. Should it be purely professional? More personal? Open or enigmatic?

In the end, I decided to keep the social elements - allow applications to interact with my friends and such - but left my personal information with a catch-all phrase: 'Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.' That, I decided, summed up what I wanted to leave to posterity.

In light of the questioning of my own identity, it makes complete sense that Alex had worked his online profile deletion into his decision two weeks ago.

The last I'd heard from him was in November when he left a comment on one of my photos. Looking at that particular page now, his name and comment remain but his profile photo is the generic Facebook question mark - very poignant and very, very sad.

Alex's legacy, for me, is the realisation that no matter how detailed a friend's page is, and how many times you've seen it, you never truly know the person behind the Facebook profile.

You might see his occasional photos or regular status updates, but these really afford just a passing glimpse into a precious soul.

You'll be missed, Alex.

joannel@sph.com.sg

ENOUGH

When so much effort is put into distinguishing one's person, it is no wonder that some find it necessary to do the exact opposite.