The rules of intellectual hygiene on the web from the point of view of the inevitability of death

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

For those who think about what they will leave behind in the virtual world.

The ancient call to “remember death” in our frivolous and cheerful time takes on a new meaning, although it would seem that the whole modern culture and the way of life itself does not at all dispose to such thoughts.

Death is always near, and universal access to online has created a situation no longer of a “global village”, but of a “global communal apartment”: in a village you can still live in the notorious “hut on the edge” and know nothing, but in a communal apartment there is a commemoration in the next room inevitably become a part of your life and there is no getting away from it. Among other things, even a moderate presence in social networks and instant messengers destroys the opportunity to die quietly and unnoticed: someone will miss it anyway, write, tell, not to mention the prospects for dividing the digital heritage, which is discussed below.

The news of death comes to a modern person in the same way as everyone else - everyday and surrounded by spam, advertisements, funny pictures and videos.

You can look into social networks in the morning and find out that someone from the famous has died or, even more discouraging, someone from your neighbors. And if we learn about the death of great or just famous people from more or less professional obituaries, then common acquaintances notify us about the death of ordinary people by sending a message to the messenger or by writing on their page something like “How is it, Imyarek ?!.

Or we see that everyone suddenly began to write something specific on the page of a person who does not write anything else himself - and everything becomes clear. It is understandable and often unbearably absurd if condolences are written under the last post of the deceased, which is most often about something mundane and therefore does not at all look like a message from eternity.

Finally, there is the most difficult situation - when someone is forced to inform others about the loss he personally suffered. I don’t want to think about it, but this is a separate hell - to choose the words to once tell everyone what in the old days would have to be communicated only to a narrow circle. Finding words and then getting sad emoticons and condolences, don't understand from whom, is also a big test, including for condolences.

Under normal conditions, you can hug, cry, offer help, but in the world of virtual relationships, you have to choose one of three actions or their combinations: put the notorious sad smiley, write a few words, or just keep silent, because it is not very clear whether they are so important loss to a person of your emoticons and words, if you do not know personally? Here a portal opens to a different topic: who are friends to each other on social networks, and where is the line of appropriate participation in the personal affairs of a virtual friend, with whom you are united only by a hobby or general political views.

You can, of course, not report anything about death, illness, divorce and betrayal, but then you need to be prepared for stupid jokes, inappropriate questions and greetings, for which you cannot even blame: how do people know that a person has somehow left your life if you yourself did not report anything?

Digital etiquette will develop sooner or later, humanity will develop general rules for virtual grief, including the duration of mourning in social networks, the forms and volumes of permissible condolences, and so on.

For example, some social networks remind us in advance of death, offering to choose the algorithm of actions with the account in case you suddenly stop appearing in it - such services are definitely available for Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter. There are two solutions: the account is simply liquidated after some time, or the digital executor assigned by the user gets access to it. It is to his mail that a message will come that he can enter the account of the deceased, somehow fix the status "died" and bring it to its final form.

However, social networks do not strongly insist on drawing up a digital will, you need to delve into the settings to find an item about it. But if you once found it and filled it out, then periodically, at the most unexpected time, you will receive letters reminding you that you are mortal, and with a delicate request to confirm your orders regarding executors.

The motive of Internet services is clear: on the one hand, they do not want to pester users with awkward offers right now to think about death, on the other hand, they must do something: the virtual world is filled with unburied dead, whom you are invited to congratulate on your birthday among the living and who, out of ignorance, continue to congratulate, like the living, inattentive people or soulless bots.

In general, the prospect of death, and above all sudden death, makes us take all our digital and virtual economy with the same seriousness as ordinary property.

Even if a person has nothing but debts, but at the same time he leads a stormy virtual life, a legacy will remain from him: accounts in social networks and on dating sites, instant messengers and mailboxes, photo archives and, perhaps, even diaries, which in our time most often they also exist in the form of files or secret blogs.

Someone will have to deal with all this and, perhaps, more than the desire to find out about a loved one, a lot of unexpected and completely inappropriate, especially in a situation of mourning. Someone, on the contrary, will watch in despair as the accounts of deceased loved ones are hacked and filled with advertisements, and from a lifetime there is not even a photograph left that can be put on the nightstand by the bed, because the entire archive of the deceased was password-protected.

From all of the above, it follows that you should be a little stricter towards yourself, and a little more attentive to your loved ones, and even if not every day, but at least sometimes critically review your potential digital heritage and put it in the order in which you will not be ashamed to open it. to the closest people: erase personal correspondence and awkward photos (especially of others) in time, find time and fill out forms in those services where this is provided, leave the opportunity to access what may be important not only for you.

But, of course, remembering the inevitable is worth not only for the convenience of others and the relevance of statuses in social networks. There is also a very practical sense for every day: for example, it would be nice to learn before publishing a post or comment to think about how it would look like the last one and whether it is worth writing it at all.