By. Kayla Hopkins
With so many tragedies taking place all over the world the topic of death has become an almost normal conversation to have, however this conversation is no longer just taking place in person, but also all over the internet and social media outlets. People will post on Facebook, Tweet, make photo collages along with other forms of remembering the dead all on the internet. Death no longer just includes going to services, sending a card or making a donation. This however brings up a serious question. What happens when a person dies, yet their virtual presence still remains? Some studies estimate that around 2060 the dead and the living on Facebook will equal out and eventually the deceased will surpass the living number of Facebook users. There are also studies that have been done that state if Facebook continues to grow with the same progress as it has been then the living and deceased will equal out around 2130 and eventually the deceased will surpass the living after that date.
In early 2015, Facebook announced a change to their death policy. Their previous death policy only included the action to "memorialize a page", delete it or leave it unchanged only after a family member had provided proof of the death. If the option to memorialize a page was chosen the deceased users profile would be removed from public spaces, would only be available to friends, no one is able to log into the account and depending on the privacy settings previous posts and photos are able to be viewed and new content is able to be posted to the memorialized page. With this new change to their policy, Facebook has now made it possible for each profile holder to designate a "Legacy Contact". This "Legacy Contact" has the ability to "pin a post" to the user's timeline, most likely including information about services or memorials being held. This change came after families of deceased Facebook users expressed the desire to have access to the user's photos in order to obtain them for memories and keepsakes.
Other social network sites like Google and Twitter have also implemented death policies, but no social media network has a policy in which the profile must be deleted or deactivated. Google's policy is entitled "Plan Your Digital Afterlife", which allows designated contacts to access your information and digital data. Many U.S legislatures have debated this topic, about who should be allowed to have access to a person's online data once they have passed, but no national law has been passed stating who has the right to access this digital property.
This leads to the question then if people's online presence is never removed, are they "completely" dead since they are still alive in the virtual world of the internet? Since the profile still exists and under certain settings other users can interact with the profile (lacking any response), viewing pictures, posting videos pictures and posts among other things it creates a sense that this person still lives on in the current world since their profile exists. Although these profiles can offer a great place for people to remember and commemorate the deceased (if properly memorialized) I believe that there are also downsides. As a society I believe that the ability to post on a wall or put up a photo has in a way decreased our sensitivity to death since we still have the ability to interact and lack the finality that comes with death. In my opinion death is not viewed as final as it once was since the ability to interact in a more visual and "normal" way is now an option. In order to remember a friend all one has to do is sit behind their computer screen or log onto their social media account on their phone. The lives of the living continue on with the use of social media, because now even death can be shared and remembered there as well.
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