Are the dead taking over Facebook? A Big Data approach to the future of death online

Öhman, Carl; Watson, David S.

doi:10.1177/2053951719842540

Cited by 44 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…This expansion and consumption model has both supported and neglected the data of the dead, which both proliferates and languishes. For example, as researchers across disciplines have noted, the dead may soon outnumber the living on social media (Karppi, 2018;Öhman & Watson, 2019). But while questions about digital remains are "critically needed" (Öhman & Watson, 2019, pp.…”

Section: Sarah Welsh the University Of Texas At Austinmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Increasing attention has been paid to technologies for grief, end of life, and digital possessions (Sas et al, 2019), and also to digital remains as big data (Karppi, 2018;Öhman & Watson, 2019). However, these perspectives often focus on the (important) question of how digital remains are mediated by corporate interests (as Facebook profiles especially), and less on the environmental impact of the mass-scale preservation required for such a model.…”

Section: Maintaining Digital Remainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Burying the Dead (Users): A Life of Data Within Limits

Welsh

2020

SPIR

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Technological innovation depends on earthly resources. As such, the drive to continuous growth that has propelled technology forward is also in direct competition with a planet that is reaching capacity. This expansion and consumption model has both supported and neglected the data of the dead, which both proliferates and languishes. For example, as researchers across disciplines have noted, the dead may soon outnumber the living on social media. Questions about digital remains should attend not only to social media profiles but also to the life cycles of data. This paper considers environmental and resource-related questions about the traces we leave when we depart. To do this work, a theoretical methodological approach following the Computing within LIMITS model (Nardi et al, 2018) is employed to consider the accumulation of data that remains after users have departed from their earthly (and digital) lives. LIMITS is a sustainability model that asks researchers to (1) question growth, (2) consider models of scarcity, and (3) reduce energy and material consumption. That is, this paper questions the life of digital data that can be maintained and can even grow after a user passes on. In addition to questions about mourning, memorializing, and archiving the dead, the LIMITS model prompts ethical questions about how to bury our dead data responsibly and sustainably in the face of exponential growth.

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Section: Sarah Welsh the University Of Texas At Austinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Maintaining Digital Remainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Burying the Dead (Users): A Life of Data Within Limits

Welsh

2020

SPIR

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“…Consider, for instance, the increasing presence of deceased user profiles on social media, commonly referred to as digital human remains (Stokes, 2015). It has been predicted that within less than 50 years, Facebook may host more profiles belonging to deceased than living users (Öhman and Watson, 2019), meaning that past individuals now increasingly remain present in the spaces of the living. In scholarly literature, this co-presence has rightly been interpreted in terms of a collapsing time , where the present and the past implode into each other.…”

Section: The Ethical Significance Of Temporal Frictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A theory of temporal telepresence: Reconsidering the digital time collapse

Öhman

2020

Time & Society

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This article focuses on the concept of ‘time collapse’ commonly used within scholarship on digital memory. Despite its intuitive appeal, I claim that the notion of a collapsed time leaves considerable room for conceptual ambiguity, which in turn hampers a deeper ethical analysis of the topic. In view of this ambiguity, the present article sets out to provide analytical rigor to, and thus unpack the ethical dimensions of, the notion of time collapse. Pursuing this goal, I introduce the concept of temporal friction, denoting informational resistance that makes moments of time perceivable as separate for an embodied epistemic agent. I argue that the concept of temporal friction offers a more flexible and precise interpretation of collapsed time, and draw on two examples – search warrants and the so-called digital remains – to illustrate its ethical significance.

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“…The most popular SNS worldwide -FB has been targeted ever since its establishment, by researchers of various fields, such as the communication, information and computer science, health sciences, and psychology, to find out their roles and functions in bereavement (Brubaker, Hayes, & Dourish, 2013;Carroll & Landry, 2010;DeGroot, 2012;Pennington, 2013;Rossetto, Lannutti, & Strauman, 2014). Additionally, O¨hman & Watson (2019) via their analysis applying the big data approach, concluded that the dead will outnumber the living on FB before the end of the century and they claimed digital remains or profiles of the dead may become invaluable collective historical records of present societies for future generations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“You are Dead, but You are Not”: Social medium (Facebook) is the message in grieving and continuing bonds

Tan

2020

informasi

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Today, one may no longer alive but his social networking sites (SNS) account will still live on. Empirical studies on death and SNS started since 2004 covering issues on grief, bereavement, mourning, relational continuity functions of SNS, and digital legacy. Majority of them applied content and discourse analyses on SNS messages directed to or related to the deceased. Applying McLuhan’s aphorism medium is the message, researcher focused on the interplay among forms and functions of Facebook (FB) as a medium and message that mediates grief and the bereaved persons who are communicators that decided to grieve on FB. This research adopts grounded theory approach where in- depth interviews with 10 bereaved persons who maintain relational continuity with their deceased loved ones through FB were conducted. The conclusions are drawn to prove that bereaved users preferred to engage in a transcoporeal mediated communication with deceased for continuing bonds due to four main reasons – the deceased are perceived “dead but they are not”; maintaining relational continuity via FB is essential to “finish their unfinished business”; they felt aided and embraced when adopting “FB the Public Platform for Private Grief”, and they imagined a mutual communication based on “past experience and religious belief”. The mediated transcopereal communication (TcC) is enabled because the social medium (FB) is the message.

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Are the dead taking over Facebook? A Big Data approach to the future of death online

Cited by 44 publications

References 28 publications

Burying the Dead (Users): A Life of Data Within Limits

Burying the Dead (Users): A Life of Data Within Limits

A theory of temporal telepresence: Reconsidering the digital time collapse

“You are Dead, but You are Not”: Social medium (Facebook) is the message in grieving and continuing bonds

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