Mylique Sutton
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Who gets your illegally downloaded music collection? Who will pick up your slack in that group project? Of course, there’s also figuring out how your online persona will be handled.
Google has released an Inactive Account manager tool that will allow you to declare up to 10 people who will have access to your account information or if you would prefer to have everything wiped out after you pass away. You can set up your account to either be purged or passed on after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactive, and then Google will take action.
A month prior to the scheduled date, Google will send a text or email to your secondary address check up on you and if you fail to respond to whatever reason the final step will be taken.
Although Google may not like it, chances are that your digital life encompasses more than them which means that there’ll need to be a bit more planning for your digital afterlife.
While neither Facebook nor Twitter have a similar feature which would allow you to plan how your account is handled before it’s too late, there’s a third party service that would allow you to schedule special messages to be published in the future.
DeadSocial works in conjunction with a users’ Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn account to send messages from the account as if the original user were still alive and kicking.
For the tweeters among us, _LivesOn is a tool that hasn’t quite been perfected yet, but the creators hope that one day it will be effectively able to mirror the tweeting style of the account owner. That way a person’s memory will be kept alive as twitter continues to post tweets in their “voice.”
Another service that allows you to live on even after you’re long is if i die, which sends private video or text messages via Facebook or email after three people you listed confirmed that you’re no longer with them.
While many of these programs may seem more appropriate with the terminally ill, these programs are also suitable for the sudden, unexpected deaths. They may help mourning loved ones and you may come to terms with your mortality by planning for the unforeseen.
The government also advocates the creation of a social media will because not everything you leave behind can be physically held.
Social media has changed the way we live our lives, and with these emerging tools allowing us to live on they may change the way we look at death too.