Digital Death Day: Have you considered your digital self when you die?
Sometimes I come across something that is simply intriguing in its own right and causes me to reflect on our brave new world; this is one those times.
If we are lucky we are given the opportunity to consider the phsyical aspects of our death; our body and our goods etc, but what about our digital life?
Well, Life Insurance Finder have a detailed guide on how to prepare our Facebook profile and other social media accounts in the event of our death. They recommend the creation of a digital will and the nomination of a digital executor.
Here’s some of the issues at stake:
You might not know what happens when you die but you can control what happens online!
You are filling the internet with status updates, image and video creating new digital dilemmas such as:
Whether you want to live forever online?
How to protect your privacy after death?
How to maintain your digital legacy?
Who to appoint as your digital executor?
Whether You Would Want to Be Digitally Resurrected
Live forever online and digital ressurection!
There’s even been ‘Digital Death Day‘ conferences, to explore options for dealing with online profiles after death; I kid ye not.
Check out the links; it makes for fascinating reading.
Tags: Internet & Technology
November 30th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
Only an insurance company …
I am reasonably sure that, in my hour of dying, I shall not be thinking about Facebook. No, really.
November 30th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
I think Life Insurance Finder have missed the most important point.
If one wishes to be canonised after one’s death – and shouldn’t we all aspire to be saints? – it will now be one’s digital output that is examined by the Diocesan and Pontifical processes as well as one’s print writings.
Is there perhaps already an online store at the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints where one can lodge the products of one’s engagement with the new media, just on the off chance that it might be needed?
Taking care of this must surely be the most important task of a digital executor.
November 30th, 2011 at 10:59 pm
I understand the live forever bit, having been brought up on Lee Falk’s ‘Phantom’ comics. ‘ The ghost who walks, the man who cannot die’ concept could be applicable for some online presences.
Not sure how digital resurrection would work though.
December 1st, 2011 at 9:20 pm
I am still trying to get my uncles Facebook account removed and he died six months ago!