Transcription
Welcome to Dying to Know More Minis, byte-size episodes where we explore one question about death and dying and everything in between in 5 minutes or less. Today's question is this.
What is a digital afterlife? Well, we all leave behind things when we die. Memories, belongings, u tangible things, intangible things. But in today's world, we leave behind something much bigger and much longerlasting. Our digital selves. So think about it. Your Facebook profile, Instagram photos, tweets, emails, online bank accounts, even your Netflix history. So when you die, all of that doesn't just vanish. It becomes part of what's now called your digital afterlife.
So what happens to it? Well, it depends. Some platforms like Facebook let you designate a legacy contact, somebody to manage your page as a memorial. Others like Google allow you to set up an inactive account manager and that is somebody who gets to decide what happens to your files. Do they get saved? Do they get shared? Do they get deleted? And then there's some sites that they just lock your account when you're when they're notified of your death and that's that.
There are though even new businesses popping up that specialize in digital estate planning, helping you decide what should be deleted, what should be saved, who should have access to your stuff. The big idea is this. Just like we write a will for our physical belongings, many experts say we should create a plan for our digital legacies. Without one, families are often left to navigate figuring out complicated passwords, getting into locked accounts, all of those tough things.
Or we can reframe it, as my therapist likes to say, and look at it like this. Your digital afterlife can be kind of an immortality. Photos, posts, blogs, videos, all of those often live online indefinitely and give future generations a way to know us long after we're gone. So, what will your digital afterlife look like? Something to think about.
This has been a dying to know more mini. Join me next time and we'll dive into another question about death, dying, and everything in between.