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A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

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Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#61

Post by Loughla »

sliverstorm wrote: post #59
Afforess wrote: post #16

This is why setting up a deathswitch with a trusted friend to manage your online accounts upon death is critical. Wills are nice and all but I don't trust my close family to be proficient enough to correctly close out my online accounts.

That's really not what I took away from this. Why do you... you know, care what happens to your online accounts? Web accounts are no more special than your library or toll road accounts. The only reason bank accounts matter at all is because the contest need to be disbursed.

Do you want your on-line account compromised with Viagra spam after your death? Do you want your grieving family to receive BIGGER PENIS NOW advertisements from you once you've passed?

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#62

Post by S_A_P »

InTheSwiss wrote: post #46
noonespecial wrote: post #8

As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to them thanks to left over accounts. Its almost like at any moment, a tweet will pop up or an update to a wall... Perhaps that's the 21st century version of seeing ghosts.

When my girlfriend died I could not bring myself to remove her from my friends list. She is still there. Her beautiful smile looks at me nearly every day. Some days I am glad to see that little profile picture of hers and others it is painful. Her family could have the account closed I guess but I think they feel the same as me and closing it is like deleting a little part of what we have left of her :(

This is probably one of the most profoundly sad things I've read in a while. I don't know you or your girlfriend but I truly feel sorry for your loss. I am fortunate to (so far) have not experienced the deaths of many loved ones. I could only imagine the range of emotions I would feel, especially with their virtual presence persisting after they pass.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#63

Post by officemonkey »

Afforess wrote: post #16

This is why setting up a deathswitch with a trusted friend to manage your online accounts upon death is critical. Wills are nice and all but I don't trust my close family to be proficient enough to correctly close out my online accounts.

This is the on-line version of the "If I die, get rid of my porn stash so my mom won't find it."

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#64

Post by sliverstorm »

Loughla wrote: post #61
sliverstorm wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really not what I took away from this. Why do you... you know, care what happens to your online accounts? Web accounts are no more special than your library or toll road accounts. The only reason bank accounts matter at all is because the contest need to be disbursed.

Do you want your on-line account compromised with Viagra spam after your death? Do you want your grieving family to receive BIGGER PENIS NOW advertisements from you once you've passed?

How exactly would my passing cause this?

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#65

Post by conanbatt »

InTheSwiss wrote: post #46
noonespecial wrote: post #8

As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to them thanks to left over accounts. Its almost like at any moment, a tweet will pop up or an update to a wall... Perhaps that's the 21st century version of seeing ghosts.

When my girlfriend died I could not bring myself to remove her from my friends list. She is still there. Her beautiful smile looks at me nearly every day. Some days I am glad to see that little profile picture of hers and others it is painful. Her family could have the account closed I guess but I think they feel the same as me and closing it is like deleting a little part of what we have left of her :(

I got the birthday notification one my most beloved teacher, and he passed away more than a year ago.

It is a bitter sweet moment indeed. Im kind of glad i got the notification really.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#66

Post by jlgreco »

sliverstorm wrote: post #64
Loughla wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want your on-line account compromised with Viagra spam after your death? Do you want your grieving family to receive BIGGER PENIS NOW advertisements from you once you've passed?

How exactly would my passing cause this?

Your passing wouldn't cause it; and it could happen to anybody. However having it happen after you die is going to have an emotional impact on those who are still alive. How would it feel to open up facebook and see that you have a message from your deceased spouse? Not very good I imagine.

I think it is entirely reasonable that some people would want to prevent this from happening.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#67

Post by GrinningFool »

scott_s wrote: post #48
United857 wrote: post #21

Sadly, this is a byproduct of a passivity in relationships that seems to be more pervasive in the Facebook era. You don't need to reach out to your friends anymore, instead, we just consume each other's broadcasts.

I disagree. Modern communication, such as Facebook, email and phones enable us to maintain friendships over time and distances that previously was unrealistic. Twenty years ago, this would have been an instance of "someone I used to be friends with died." The difference here is that because of the modern communication available, there's an expectation that we can maintain the relationship over time and distance, even…

An argument can be made that if people have disappeared from our lives entirely that indicates neither party was truly interested in maintaining that relationship. A friendship worth maintaining is worth maintaining even when it's not easy or convenient.

So we keep in touch with these people we would ordinarily have forgotten about, or perhaps had an occasional thought about but not cared enough to pursue. Is this change encouraging a meaningful relationship, or just a superficial one?

Deleted my FB account once I had the realization above. People I speak to regularly, I speak to regularly regardless. Not surprisingly, none of the 'long lost' contacts I picked up have kept in touch with me since then; nor have I attempted to keep in touch with them.

Which just serves to reinforce my point - when it was no longer convenient, we stopped keeping in touch. Which means that neither party actually cared enough to pursue it.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#68

Post by Timothee »

Of course, this has happened for as long as people have been able to travel. Before the Internet, you'd move to a different city, and maybe you'd keep in touch with some people but for the most part, you'd never know what happened to most people you knew. Because as soon as they moved or changed their phone number, getting back in touch was limited or involved a certain amount of research.

The difference now is that people who are in the acquaintance-Internet friend spectrum can still be reached easily with an email, a tweet, an instant message… if you wanted to. So they always feel kind of "there" even if you don't actually communicate with them. Until, like the author, you try to reach out and they don't reply back.

It's kind of an interesting thing of online "friends": you can be in touch with somebody in a chat room or a forum for years and feel like you know them well (at least in the context, you've known them), but they can just disappear one day and you won't know if it's because they died or just moved on to other things.

I was thinking about that about a guy I've been playing Words with Friends for probably three years. I only play with him because I know we're about the same level and it's hard to find players like that. (we were matched randomly) But I don't know anything about him except for his first name, most likely his birth year (based on his username) and possibly the fact that he lives on the East Coast based on the time he plays his turns. If he were to stop playing, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference from him being dead. It's a strange thing.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#70

Post by kaeruct »

pizzeys wrote: post #30
surge wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long thought of a start up that would offer a kill switch service. Something that you checked into every so often to verify you were still alive (by email, text, or it just monitored your social feeds). If over a custom set period of time 30-365 days, if it hadn't heard anything it would attempt to confirm you're still alive either by notifying you directly or a friend to confirm if you weren't. At which point i…

I wrote this for just me a while back, and everyone I talked to about it thought it was morbidly weird. I'm glad there are others who think it isn't, but that might be something a startup had to contend with.

Any change you could publish it? I would love to have this myself
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