When a Facebook user dies and Facebook is informed of the death, the company "memorializes" the profile, hiding features such as status updates, and allowing only confirmed friends to view the timeline and post on the profile.

Maintaining access to such a profile helps in the mourning process, said psychologist Elaine Kasket, who presented a paper on life after death on Facebook at the conference on Monday.

"Visible conversation with a person who died and about person who died is important in the grief process," she said.

But while that may be important to Facebook friends, the family might think otherwise. If a friend for instance posts a picture on the deceased's profile showing them drunk and passed out on the floor during a party this might give solace to the poster, but family members could want to remember them in another way, said Kasket.

A wall post like this could prompt the family to ask Facebook to remove the whole profile, and in that way re-traumatize close Facebook dealing with the death, who then have to go through a second shock when they realize that the profile too is gone, said Kasket.