Life after death on Facebook

Life after death on Facebook


AT least two of my Facebook friends have died. Family, friends and acquaintances have bid them tearful and tasteful final farewells, but their presence continues to be felt -- no, not along dark corridors late at night, but in cyberspace. Strangely and disturbingly, these friends continue to live online even when they had "offlined" in real life.

One just received a torrent of birthday messages on his wall, a month after his departure from this world. Ironically, some of his Facebook friends wished him a long and healthy life. One or two hoped he would have a better year ahead.

Several mentioned that it's been a long time, and that they should catch up soon.

Meeting up would be rather complicated in present circumstances, however. A medium, or worse exorcist, would need to be present.

This would not have occurred if he had accepted only real friends as his online friends.

Real friends would know why you stopped posting status updates and photos on the social networking site. They would be concerned enough to make enquiries as soon as they saw others posting "RIP" on your wall.

Some of his friends took the time and trouble to reply to all those who wanted to meet him soon: "Hey, he has left us, mate."

It would be interesting if he replied himself: "Let's meet up now. I'm right behind you."

Many of us spend most of our waking hours on the social networking site, but never give a thought to these questions -- how many profiles on Facebook belong to the deceased, and what would happen to our own accounts when we pass on. Some profiles of the deceased continue to pop up in the "the people you may know" feature on Facebook's homepage and "find friends" page.

This gives a whole different meaning to the quote "I see dead people".

Some virtual identities are kept alive and active by spouses, family members and friends. They update the profile and continue to post comments and tag pictures.

There have been arguments that this is an infringement of privacy but loved ones say this is their way of preserving their memories.

"As time passes, the pain of losing someone fades but the memories live on and Facebook provides a good place to store those memories, and to share and reminisce. So, why delete the dead person's profile?" shared a friend who managed her late husband's site for a while.

Other profiles are locked down by Facebook and put in a "memorial state". This means you can no longer add the person as a friend. Only friends confirmed before can see the profile or locate it in search.

Family and friends need to report the death to Facebook and apply to have the profile memorialised. But as in real life, not everyone feels comfortable with the presence of the dead in the cyberworld.

When someone dies, his or her cyber accounts should be cancelled, some users insist.

"The wall should be kept active for at least a month for friends to post condolences. After that, it should be deactivated," one suggested.

With all these arguments, perhaps we should seriously contemplate our virtual life after death.

It is a question that is becoming increasingly relevant in this digital age.

It may be taboo to think of death but let's reflect for a moment over the thousands of digital possessions we may be leaving behind -- pictures, graphics, videos, emails, status updates, comments, opinions, observations, reviews, music and personal data on Facebook, Gmail, Blogger, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr and many other online sites.

What will happen to these "possessions" when we die? Do we give our loved ones access to our accounts while we are alive or put the passwords down in our will? Should we hire the services of companies that specialise in managing our digital lives after we pass on?

Legacy Locker, Asset Lock, and Deathswitch are among the websites that are offering encrypted space for people to store their passwords and other information. They will store our details and pass them to the designated person when we die unexpectedly or become terminally ill or disabled.

Give it a thought. Ideally, we should all leave instructions for where we want our online accounts to go after we have gone.