Your Social Media Profiles Will Outlive You

How do you want to be remembered?

I saw a movie that had an interesting take on cemeteries.

A woman dies and is buried, but there are short towers with video screens instead of a traditional headstone. Her husband inserts a flash drive and uploads her profiles and pictures, including videos. Every time someone walks by, it starts to play.

Strangely enough, this reminded me of my first girlfriend in high school, who passed away recently.

We had lost touch after graduation, but like many, the advent of Facebook reconnected us 30 years later.

We chatted for a while before eventually falling into an irregular pattern of contact. We had become very different people leading vastly different lives. Her face had not changed, but she had become a competitive bodybuilder while I steered into the arts.

When I learned of her passing, I pulled out boxes of photos taken on film when that was our only choice, instead of the fad it is today. I eventually found a few of her.

I shouldn’t have bothered because there are still dozens of pictures of her online.

By that, I mean her husband has left her Facebook and Instagram profiles up. This is not the first time I’ve seen this happen.

Many of your friends will go before you if you live long enough. I’ve had several high school friends die lately, four in the last three months. All of their profiles are still there. I even see a friend’s profile who died a dozen years ago.

In some ways, I’m okay with it. I sometimes look at their pictures and videos and smile while reminiscing.

I do wish more people would scan older photos and post them. The pictures we see tend to only be from the last 10–15 years, dating back to when digital cameras became the norm.

At the same time, I will admit there are moments I’m creeped out by these profiles. It’s like sifting through their personal belongings long after they’re gone. It’s even creepier when someone who has died appears in the “People you may know” section.

According to Facebook, your profile stays up indefinitely.

It is only taken down if the family requests it and shows proof of your passing.

You could save your family the trouble by stashing your passwords somewhere for them to find later. Be careful, though. The hospice nurse for my mother-in-law found her password book on a nightstand and gave it to hackers. Fortunately, I knew what I was doing and shut them down quickly.

Social media is not the only way we’ve saved moments of friends and loved ones over the years.

I’m from a generation that had answering machines. When someone passed, we wouldn’t erase their last message on the cassette so we could hear their voice occasionally.

Today, we save them on our phones, but there are caveats.

People don’t understand that their messages are not kept on their phones, but rather, they are on the servers of their cell phone carriers. What this means is that it’s easy for them to disappear.

For example, when I worked for Apple, I saw more than one person cry if they had to reset their iPhone because the voicemails didn’t transfer over.

I’m luckier than most. I can still hear my parent’s voices in my head clearly.

When someone dies, do you keep them in your contacts?

My mother is still of my Favorites even though she passed three years ago. I know the phone number likely belongs to someone else now, but I can’t bring myself to delete it. It’s the same with her birthday. It’s on my calendar, and my phone still reminds me when the date comes around.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that millions of dead people are still online.

We all want to leave a little bit of ourselves behind, but is an algorithm the way to do it?