“…in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” — Bejamin Franklin 1789
Benjamin Franklin would never have anticipated anything like social media. From chronicling the mundane (what I ate for lunch) to the monumental (Trump as President?), Facebook has become the background of life for many.
Life and Death of Socialmedia InfoART
WE’RE MORE CONNECTED THAN EVER, thanks to social media. Despite thousands of miles of distance, we can still stay in touch with fans, followers, friends and family. We can even make new friends and start support groups and social movements at the drop of a #hashtag. But the websites that helped make this all possible had to start somewhere. And despite their strong starts, some sites didn’t last to see the interconnected world we live in today.
The Climb to Success
Monthly active users* worldwide infographic
Who’s Using What?
Percentage of Americans who say they use social media (2018) infographic
Back From the Dead
infographic
MySpace: There was a time when MySpace was in the same boat as Xanga — essentially dead. To regain some popularity, the site went through a redesign and shifted its focus in 2010 from personal profiles to music. Then it went through another redesign in 2013. When that wasn’t enough, in 2014, MySpace made a seemingly last-ditch effort with an email blast to users reminding them of all the pics they uploaded in the angst of their youth. The appeal to nostalgia worked — at least for a little while.
Life and Death on Socialmedia
Life and death on social media infographic
As more and more people began using Facebook, they started to notice the normal life cycle of their friends played out in front of them. Depending on your age, you might have seen some of your closest friends go through this kind of progression.
Cycle Of Life And Death
A Life Centered on Love
For a while, it seemed like all my friends were getting married. Then, having kids. Then, we watched as they started getting divorced or separated from their loved ones. Because of the reach of Facebook, we heard about these life cycles from people that we may have known at one time, but wouldn’t count as friends in real life.
This year, I had a couple of friends pass away, both were way too young to die. We grieved them individually and collectively. Their social media pages were flooded with memories and condolences.
But there’s something uncomfortable when I get asked to friend someone that’s died. Or asked to celebrate their birthday, or anniversary of work, when they’ve already passed away. Or when they show up in a picture on my timeline memories.
In real life, as time passes, memories fade. Our brains have an amazing capacity to push unpleasant thoughts into the background as time marches on. We may dwell on them from time to time, but what seemed impossible to overcome when it first happened, can become dulled with time.
Because of the sheer mass of Facebook users, an estimated 10,000 users die every single day. There will come a time possibly where there are more people on Facebook that are dead than alive. While Facebook gives the option of changing an account to a memorial account, it doesn’t seem to happen that often… at least with my friends.
Then again, maybe it’s not so bad then when Facebook reminders of those departed pop up.
It does make me pause and remember them in life. While there’s sadness, there’s also a memory of better times and a place to share those memories. And maybe some comfort in knowing that when it’s my time, others may still have a reason to remember me on occasion. I hope so.
What Happens to Your Social Media Life When You Die?What Happens to Your Social Media Life When You Die?
San Francisco resident Sarah Buhr's friend Tiffany passed away a couple of months ago but Buhr still hears from her on Facebook.
Tiffany's Likes, and other people's comments on Tiffany's profile, push her information onto Buhr's newsfeed, offering a frequent reminder that her friend is gone. Buhr says she felt she had to unfriend Tiffany because it was too difficult to be reminded of the loss nearly everyday.
Jeff Lutz has a similar story. His beloved grandfather's wife, Laurel Lutz, passed away in 2011. Her side of the family must have continued to operate Laurel's Facebook page because Lutz said he continued to see updates and Likes.
"In the first week after Laurel passed, a note went on her Facebook wall thanking her family via various inside jokes and drinking references," he says. "In the weeks that followed, Likes of Dunkin' Donuts began to appear, alongside checking in at various locations. The real topper was a 2011 halloween profile image change to her face digitized on a pumpkin."
Death is a topic people tend to avoid thinking about. But since so many people have social media profiles, blogs and various online accounts — and a growing web presence in general, it's wise to consider what happens with that information when you're no longer alive.
Jeremy Toeman is the founder of Legacy Locker, a company that provides wills for digital properties. Toeman tells Mashable he write wills for all types of digital properties — "really practical stuff from banking information, mortgages, to personal stuff like blogs, Twitter and Facebook profiles and online gaming sites."
A "Facebook ghost" is the term Toeman uses to describe deceased friends and relatives who continue to appear in one's Facebook's feed. For some users it can be too emotional to continuously see the Likes of lost loved ones while they're browsing Facebook.
Legacy Locker lets people create a "legacy letter" to be automatically emailed to all their contacts in the event of their death that can include passwords and instructions for their digital profiles. The email can also contain a video.
"The digital footprints we're leaving these days are pretty significant," he adds. "We believe this should be a way to safeguard that identity."
Justin A. Meyer, Esq., an estate planning attorney in Hauppauge, New York, tells Mashable, "A lot of the laws have not yet caught up with the realities of digital media," he said. "As such, we have begun including into our Last Wills and Testaments a clause giving the executor the power to access all digital assets and accounts.
While these clauses have not yet been tested, we think that it would be sufficient to get Twitter or Facebook to do what the Executor wants. These powers could also be put in a different party, if the holder of the account wants."
There are no clear laws about what happens to someone's social media accounts or blog when they die. The only documents governing this are the companies' terms of service agreements.
Facebook, Google and Twitter all have policies relating to what happens with a user's information once they die.
A Facebook spokesperson explains to Mashable: "Our standard procedure when we receive a report that a user is deceased is to memorialize the account, which restricts profile and search privacy to friends only, but leaves the profile up so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance. Also, we do honor requests from close family members to deactivate the account, which removes the profile and associated information from the site."
The process for taking control of a gmail account is the same for a Google+ account. Google's website explains that an authorized representative of the deceased user might be able to get the information after careful review, but it's not guaranteed.
Twitter's website explains that it will "work with a person authorized to act on the behalf of the estate or with a verified immediate family member of the deceased to have an account deactivated."
Jed Brubaker, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, has been studying "post mortem social networking" for three years.
He conducted a study a few years ago, monitoring 1,500 MySpace profiles of people who had died. He monitored comments and conversations that were posted on the accounts for three years. He said some of the most interesting conversations people had were about whether or not the dead could access MySpace in heaven.
Granted, he says, MySpace had a younger audience than Facebook, but these social networking sites are, in some ways, changing the way we handle death.
It's not uncommon to hear about death via Facebook, and since everyone learns about someone's passing at different times when the news is posted on a social site, mourning can be a lot more isolating, he said.
Brubaker is now conducting interviews with people about post-mortem Facebook profiles.
"Basically everyone had a strong opinion about what should happen to the deceased person's profile," he said. "And they were all across the board."
When he asked people what they wanted to happen with their own account, most people said they didn't care.
"After doing this analysis ... these issues clearly don't matter to them but it becomes a way for them do to good by the dead," he says.
"I think what the really interesting thing is here is that the online social networks we have are radically changing our relationship with death," he said. "It used to be your mom told you someone died. Now, with Facebook that guy you knew in Kindergarden — you're connected to him, so when he dies you'll know. Your generation will have more encounters with death than ever before because we'll never have lost anyone."
What's an appropriate way to handle death online? Let us know your thoughts or experiences in the comments.
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