Blazing Minds

You would have heard many times before that with every update you leave on twitter, somebody is watching. Every time you post a message on Facebook, somebody is watching. Of course you hope your friends and followers are watching but somebody else is also looking over your online profiles. No doubt you don’t give it much thought but every time you make use of any social media networking site, you are leaving a digital trail that, if followed, can build another you. A digital you that will behave like you, like what you like, dislike what you dislike and travel to the same places you travel to. This copy of you would be able to talk with your friends and duplicate your moods and opinions. This new you, for all intents and purposes, could live on after you die. Thanks to the trail of personal information you are leaving online, you are now able to digitally live on forever.

Recent figures released in the United States by Entrustet, a digital asset planning organisation, have stated that 480,000 Facebook users in the US will die in 2011. The worldwide figure is over 1.78 million, or to be more precise, about one person every three minutes. These are the figures that are known, what is not known is how many Facebook or Twitter users are actually already dead but their digital selves are living on. The figures reveal that 150% of people aged 16 to 25 have a Facebook account in the USA. So how is this possible – sure this means there are more accounts than there are people? This is exactly the case as some people will have more than one account, for example teenagers who are required to keep their Facebook use transparent will often have a second account their parents don’t know about. In other cases people will create an account with a fake name to prey on other vulnerable users, while many of those accounts will also belong to people who have died, but live on online.

All this leads to the importance of making someone your digital executor should you die. Someone to go through all your online accounts, banking, social media, blogs, emails and websites and close them down on your passing. If this is not done, give a thought to what is happening to what you leave behind. Your digital life would continue. It might not be active in those accounts unless someone happened along and discovered your passwords but you are still there none-the-less. Although you have most likely accepted the need for a will that can be used to disperse your worldly belongings as you wished on your passing, not many give a thought to all the family albums, personal comments and your digital life generally. That doesn’t mean it’s not there, it is all there in cyberspace somewhere and that’s where it will all remain forever until deleted.

There is a person reported to have suicided a few years ago. Friends on Facebook left many messages of condolences. But the Facebook page was never taken down, it’s still there and even today it gets a message posted on his wall every so often. Will he live on digitally forever in this manner? Then again does it matter? Are we too hung up on getting rid of our pasts when we physically die? Maybe we are seeing the beginnings of a person’s digital life becoming more important than his or her actual life. Imagine the benefits to today’s society if we had Socrates’ whole life laid out before us on the internet. His thoughts, his friends, his values. This is just the beginning, as following are seven reasons why a reconstructed digital afterlife could be cool.

Just imagine for a moment if we could digitally reconstruct the lives of the following people:

1. Michael Jackson for instance could continue with his singing and dancing. You could still write on his wall and he could perform his entertaining antics for you on YouTube.
2. Elvis Presley. If it’s good enough for the younger generation to enjoy the ongoing digital life of Michael Jackson  it would also be cool to digitally resurrect Elvis. Many still claim he’s not gone anyway so this would come with considerable acceptance.
3. Issac Newton.  A reconstructed digital afterlife need not be an avenue to just keep top entertainers with us forever either.  It could be extended to immortalise the lives of those with great brains. A great scientists like Issac Newton for instance. Besides his obvious scientific claims to fame, the digital progression of his job as Secretary of the British Treasury, where he set the foundation for how modern capitalism was going to work nationally, is lesser known. Perhaps if he was around now he could guide us through the never ending Global Financial Crisis he has indirectly got us into.
4. Confucius. Now here’s a digital afterlife that would be really cool. Confucius founded both philosophy and religion. He is credited with bringing reason and order to society. Since he has passed on his teachings have somehow gotten lost, but perhaps if he could be digitally brought back to life we could all have a bit of a re-think about what life is all about.
5. Mother Teresa. People like Mother Teresa shouldn’t be allowed to die. A digitally resurrected Mother Teresa could almost be made mandatory. Someone is needed to look after the lost people of India and if nobody else is prepared to move in perhaps a digital Mother Teresa could fill the gap.
6. Emily Davison is a person born into this world far too early. She never had the opportunity to engage Facebook or Twitter to help her with her fight for women’s rights. She did however see the advantage of martyrdom and took her own life by running in front of racing horses to make a point in favour of the suffragette movement. Had she had the means to live on through a digital afterlife she would have been the first to take advantage of its benefits to her cause.
7. Michael Jordan. The memories of Michael Jordan need not pass. His slam dunks could live forever digitally. People who are to take over in the future could still witness such sporting events. No more would history be history as it could remain a part of daily life through the marvels of a digital afterlife.

Makes you wonder doesn’t it? Your own great, great grandchildren could look you up on Facebook and write on your wall. They could get to know your thoughts, your likes and dislikes. You too can now live on into history albeit digitally.

Kristy Ramirez is a freelance technology and personal finance writer for Life Insurance Finder. Do you know what will happen online when you die? And have you considered death insurance? planning now can save your family a lot of pain in the future.

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