Every day we are filling the Internet with portions of our lives. The data of every status update, blog post, image, video and email is floating around the internet. Have you ever wondered what happens to all that data once we pass?
Did you know that when you die your family can request a copy of all your emails? Or that there is a good chance you could live digitally forever? These days we share so much information of ourselves online, especially through social media, but have you ever stopped to think what will happen to all that data when you are gone?
Transcript:
What Happens Online When You Die?
Lets say you represent an average person on this globe.
There is an 11% chance that you have a Facebook account.
With this account you share 450 pieces of content each year including 114 photos. That is 29 traditional photo albums in your entire life.
In your lifetime you will have spent 23 minutes a day on Twitter and have sent 15,795 tweets. You will have checked in on Foursquare 563 times, uploaded 196 hours of video on Youtube
Currently 70% of the online population are using social networks. And this number is still growing. The one thing that the 1.1 billion people currently on social networks have in common is that they are all going to die.
In fact Three FB users die every minute, at that rate… A total of 1.78 million FB users died in 2011.
Do you know what happens to your digital life when you die?
Gmail can send your next of kin all your emails and contacts on request. And so can Hotmail. Twitter can give your next of kin a copy of all your public tweets.
Do you have any digital dirty laundry you should be worried about?
All the data you have stored in the cloud belongs to the individual platform provider and they might use it.. one day to resurrect your digital self or perhaps even create a living clone or hologram of you that could interact with future generations..
Personality predictors already exist such as ‘that can be my next tweet’ and ‘Hunch’ that can make certain predictions based on your social media data.
With Life Naut you can build a mind file of almost your entire life experience. .
Where do you see your digital self in 100 years?
Emily Wilson is the associate editor of marketing and media for Appitive, where she covers digital marketing news, the fashion industry and the evolving media landscape. Emily joined the Appitive family in July 2011. She calls herself as a Passionate Social Media Diva, is an Int'l Social Media Speaker & Trainer. Emily is a graduate of Ambrose University College, where she received her B.A. in English with Honors.
Design and Developed by WPoets
I have often wondered what rights we have over the material our relatives produce online and ourselves. I have also wondered what would happen if I died. You have in part answered my questions. I think I had better give a trusted someone a list of all my sites and their passwords!