Digital Death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age

Posts frequently relate to birthdays, anniversaries of deaths, holidays, and other special occasions and express that the writer misses the deceased user and is thinking of her or him.

The notion of continued metaphysical presence after death facilitates the belief that the dead can receive messages from the living and that the relationships between Facebook Friends endure after death.

Recently, however, a new application, aptly called “If I Die,” allows users to craft a final “status update” in the form of text or video that will be published to the user’s profile once one’s three designated trustees report the death to Facebook for verification.

Second, in the absence of action by a third

In this chapter, I argue that a deceased person’s Facebook profile is transformed from a tool for communication and autobiography to one for mourning and memorializing, and back again. Such a profile can be used as a space to express and share grief, and as a memorial object that preserves memories of the deceased. However,

the essence of a photograph is death. Because a photograph does not change whether its subject is living or dead, it is in a way an inherently posthumous

but I prefer the term nondigital to real because digital and virtual objects are real, in that they exist in physical space, and engaging with them is a material experience.

Scott Simon, the NPR reporter who live-tweeted his mother’s death during her last days and hours.

“Memorializing” a profile.