Eternal Echoes
Dying to Live, Living to Die: Introduction
Photo generated using Wix AI.
Technology has become a part of our daily life. Lights are connected to the internet, being able to turn off and on with a simple voice command. Fridges have screens that connect to cell phones, sharing text messages and grocery lists without a second thought. Planning for death now is no different, with the possibility of eulogies being written using artificial intelligence and cremation machine temperatures being controlled without any human contact. Traditional end-of-life care is changing and adapting to fit into the new digital realm, making the stressors around death easier to handle.
Important TERMS TO REMEMBER WHEN DISCUSSING DIGITAL DEATHCARE AND DIGITAL RESURRECTION:
Digital Deathcare: The planning process, such as writing a will or figuring out where to be buried, through an organization's website or mobile application.
Some examples of digital deathcare platforms include Cake, Plotbox, Fenix, Windphone, and MyWishes, previously known as DeadSocial.
Versona: A virtual persona and how others see the person through the information shared on their social platforms or the digital recreation process. This is how You, Only Virtual, a digital resurrection application, refers to the characters that are created using their technology.
Digital Footprint: The unintentional and intentional data one leaves behind when using the internet. Our footprint grows through doing things like online shopping, banking, interacting with social media posts, fitness trackers, or subscribing to certain news outlets.
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Intentional data includes emails, texts, blog posts, social media posts, and photographs while unintentional data consists of records of websites, searches, logs of movement, and phone calls.
Digital Necromancy: The conjuring of the dead using digital data and footprints to represent them accurately.
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Thanatechnology: Using technological mechanisms to study death, dying, loss, and grief. This is also known as the study of new digital technologies.
