While cruising my local Barnes & Noble, I came across this book prominently displayed on an endcap. Entitled Your Digital Afterlife: When Facebook, Flickr and Twitter Are Your Estate, What's Your Legacy?, it was written by Evan Carroll and John Romano. Because of the interesting issues it raised, I couldn't resist buying it.
The authors point out that most people have not considered what will happen to their digital possessions...or even their digital identities...when they die. It's not as easy as keeping a list of all your passwords in your safe deposit box! There are a variety of legal, cultural, and technical issues that might prevent heirs from accessing these assets. What's a digital asset? The same kinds of items and heirlooms that people have been treasuring for generations: photos, home movies, letters, art, diaries, and more. As a family genealogist, I know that I love owning these kinds of items from my ancestors, but it never occured to me that much of my own legacy is digital (emails, blog entries, wikis, photos, youtube videos) and if I don't ensure that it can be saved and handed on, it will be gone forever and my decendents will have nothing to treasure. (OK...I'm not saying that my emails are literary masterpieces... but I know I'd absolutely love to have my great-grandmother's postcards to her sister. Same thing...different mediums.)
- This book is quite uncomplicated. The authors write in an easy, friendly style (important considering the topic!) and follow up each section with "Take Action" charts for you to fill in to complete tasks like inventory, listing passwords, or recording your wishes. There is an entire chapter on Social Websites and the authors have already done the research about what various popular social websites have in their terms of service regarding death. Even if the terms change, at least you know where to look. Another entire chapter covers online finances before the grand finish which wraps up with the authors' projections about what the future might hold. For example:
- as more and more people have to deal with these digital legacy issues, will some sort of standards or universal policies eventually be created?
- will the funeral industry provide more technology--like headstones with microchip messages & pictures? Will there be online memorial services available?
- as technology continues to grow and digital natives enter adulthood, will we reach a point when there is just too much content?
This book convinced me that it's not enough to be media-literate, I need to be media-responsible, too!
http://www.vidstone.com/ProductsGeneral.aspx?productID=26
ReplyDeletefuneral industry is already there!
Ok, I spent almost an hour on Friday writing a response to this and it didn't load and disappeared also let's try again........Needless to say, I was quite pleased!
ReplyDeleteI actually read an article about this in the New York Times Magazine a couple of months ago (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magazine/09Immortality-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=your%20immortal%20cybersoul&st=cse) and found it quite interesting, to say the least. The article also referenced the book you talked about.
I had never thought at all about your digital legacy and what would happen to it after you die. It is definitely an interesting question and brings up lots of issues.
The article mentions that estimates are that 375,000 facebook users die each year. I can only assume that as more and more people join facebook that the number will likely rise. Lots of questions arise about what happens to your content, who can access it, etc. In one case, the article talks about one family who sued Yahoo in an effort to get their son's email password after he was killed in Iraq. Yahoo refused, but was eventually ordered by the court to turn a cd with all his emails in it to the family. As you can see, the digital age and post mortem digital world is creating a new legal field. It makes me wonder if people should add a clause to their will bequeathing digital access to a particular beneficiary. Apparently, in addition to bank account information and safe deposit keys, people should also be providing passwords as part of their estate planning process.
The article also talked a lot about a particular prolific blogger and writer who died suddenly at the age of 34. His parents not only had to sort through his personal possessions, but also his digital life. His parents, who did not even own a computer at that point, then had to determine how/if to preserve his online self, in a sense. They also talked about how they had little idea about his blogs and how much they learned about their son after he was gone. It's an interesting thing to think about: how much would your friends and family learn about you after you're gone by looking at your computer?
Of course, in the American way, those with an entrepreneurial spirit have stepped up to make some money. One site DeathSwitch.com is discussing creating a site to send messages to loved ones after you have died. Of course, these could be sentimental messages or those of a more practical matter, like passwords, etc. Other services have already been created to act as digital safe deposit boxes.
The article definitely made me think more about the digital elements of estates. For example, if you had some sort of web business, that could be a valuable asset even though there may be no true "physical" elements of that asset.
Of course, if we do indeed attempt to preserve these "digital legacies" we also create a huge mass of digital information, much of which might be unworthy of preserving. For example, if a family member dies, part of the process is cleaning out their stuff and trying to separate between the valuable and the "other." If we are looking at digital information, that task may be more difficult. Definitely lots to think about.