Facebook: Life After Death: Continued Our Digital Footprint

In 2007 a young man died without leaving a will. Although the family were given access to his offline possessions with a death certificate, getting access to his online assets remained unresolved two years later, when the story went to press. His digital assets became inaccessible to his family, potentially leaving funds locked in his Paypal account. My knowledge and journey through the digital communications world throughout this unit made me think about the entirety and impact of a person's digital footprint: email, digital photographs, finances, social network profiles, blogs, twitter feeds and so on. And as new technologies emerge this list is only likely to grow and continue. This began my thinking of what the implications our digital assets would have in the future and what they mean to each individual person.

Richard Banks mentions in his talk about “digital heirlooms” that we are logging our lives online on an ongoing basis, and that somebody else will have to deal with all of this content once we’ve passed away. Having accumulated a very sizable digital presence, we will be leaving behind a digital footprint that is also far more considerable in size and has a much longer lifespan than the heirlooms of previous generations. But the question is: what happens to all of this when we die?

The general rule for online service providers is to protect their customers' privacy. The only way for the next of kin to access their data is for them to legally declare themselves executors of the deceased's estate. Whether or not to give access to or delete the deceased’s digital content seems to vary; providers like Facebook allow for a ‘memorial state’ profile freezing the content but allowing access to it, others like Yahoo delete the entire account. (wikidot.com, 2011)

Exley wrote a paper on how cancer patients negotiate their after-death identities. She argues that as long as the individual has an active effect on people, that person is socially alive. Exley states: “Social life is the obverse of social death and depends on the social continuation of the particular person, whether or not that person is biologically living" (Exley, 1999) If we remain active through our blogs, emails and social network profiles, then we remain active agents in others’ lives, even after our biological death. We are therefore able to leave a social impact one we are gone.

Giddens describes self-identity as 'something to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual’ (Giddens, 1991:52). Digital assets, as a means for us to log our activities, become a key part of how our identity will be preserved. But as we are also not the sole authors of our identity, our digital audience approves what we have authored online, and that is what builds our identity: ‘The wall posts left by friends on a user’s profile or page contribute as much to the individual’s identity as the information the user to display’ (Brubaker, 2010). So a memorialised Facebook profile remains our socially alive identity, as long as friends are continuing to read and post on it.  

Digital Social outlets, according to Gangadharbatler, (2008) reflect a basic human need to belong and form significant relationships.He also suggests that there a 3 basic needs which underlie social behaviour which can all be related to involvement in digital communication: ‘inclusion’ to belong in a circle of acquaintances or friends on facebook; ‘affection’ the need to be loved by others or posting a blog or video and asking for feedback and ‘control’ exerting power over others, or creating a group or forum.

The more we use digital in our daily lives, then the bigger our footprint becomes and the more it becomes part of sustaining who we are. Furthermore, since some of this activity such as blogging or Tweeting, is very public, it becomes part of how we are understood by others. This is what Giddens describes as the “Narrative of the self." (Giddens, 1999)

This narrative accumulates over time to become a biography which plays an important part in the legacy or footprint we leave behind. Exley argues in her research that cancer patients being aware of their imminent death, knowingly write the last chapter of their lives with this digital legacy (Exley, 1999).

Our digital footprint is therefore not only an important record of who we are but one that survives after our biological death. It is ironic then that we currently have very little understanding of our rights and limited control over what happens to our digital assets after we die. The first generation that have accumulated a digital identity is getting older. There are no set rules and regulations on how the digital legacy process should be managed. The only approach we are familiar with is the approach to offline assets and is not applicable to the breadth of information our digital footprint holds. It is also unclear who has actual ownership of these assets. These are the repercussions of our obsession with digital.

The majority of digital communications are still in their infancy but through studying this unit I have been able to study how much they have already impacted our lives and advertising execution but also how little we know about the future. Boud et al define reflection as ‘Those intellectual and affective activities in which individuals engage and explore their experiences in order to lead to new understanding and appreciation’ (Boud et al 1985). My blog posts have explored the social side of digital communications, the ramifications digital media has had on mobile development and how advertising has adapted to this; as this was  something I took great interest in and believed to be most relevant to now and digitals future. I feel that the underlying social reasons for why social media has become so popular is very relevant, whether it is inclusion in a Facebook group or living out a fantasy in second life.

References

Boud, D., Keogh, R., Walker, D., 1985. Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning. USA: Nicholas publishing company.

Brubaker, J. R., & Vertesi, J. (2010). Death and the Social Network. To be presented at the CHI 2010 Workshop on HCI at the End of Life: Understanding Death, Dying, and the Digital, Atlanta, GA, USA.

Exley, C., 1999. Testaments and memories: negotiating after-death identities. Mortality, 4(3), 249-267. 

 

Gangadharbatla, H., 2008. ‘Facebook Me: Collective Self-Esteem, Need to Belong and Internet Self-Efficay as Predictors of the iGeneration’s Attitudes toward Social Networking Sites’, Journal of Interactive Advertising, Available from: http://www.jiad.org/article100 [Accessed on 15th April 2011]

Giddens, A.., 1991. Modernity and self-identity. Cambridge: Polity.

Pearson, C., 2011. 285,000+ US Facebook Users Will Die This Year. Available from: http://blog.entrustet.com/2010/03/14/285000-us-facebook-users-will-die-this-year/ [Accessed on: 12 April 2011]

Wikidot., 2011. Facebook. Available from: dealingwithdeathonline.wikidot.com. Available from: [Accessed on: 12 April 2011]