By Dave Copeland, Read, Write Web
The question “what happens to your social media account when you die?” has been asked to death (pun intended). I first encountered it six years ago in the form of “what happens to your MySpace account when you die?” and now it gets updated with each new social network. It turns out that the ways people answer this question are bringing significant social change. A growing body of research suggests that social media is altering the psychology and behavior of death and mourning. A group of British researchers outline the changes in an article in the spring edition of Omega: Journal of Death & Dying. Those changes cover almost every aspect of dying, including funerals, grief, memorialization, inheritance and archaeology. New patterns attributed to online behavior are also challenging long-held standards in the study of death about how people deal with death.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social-media-is-changing-how-we-die-and-mourn.php
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