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Introduction: Contextualising Digital Afterlives

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The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives

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Abstract

We are all going to die, but in the words of Freddie Mercury ‘Who Wants to Live Forever?’ We live in a digital era, where social media is a part of the everyday lives of many. Social media platforms were designed for the living; however, they are being used to nurture ongoing relationships with the dead and are increasingly being used to discuss death, dying and grieving. In this digitised world, technology exists which enables us to create avatars allowing us to ‘live forever’ and advise future generations as reanimated digital zombies. The convergence of death-related issues and technology has become a growing and important area of study across many disciplines, including Sociology; Human-Computer Interaction (HCI); Science, Technology and Society (STS); Cyberpsychology; Death Studies; and Psychology. In our digital society, ubiquitous smart technology ensures the dead permeate into the everyday lives of the living; as sometimes they wait patiently in a state of suspension for the swipe of a finger or the click of a mouse to conjure them back into existence. Adopting qualitative methods and a constructivist grounded theory methodology, this study explores the nature and impact of the creation and inheritance of digital afterlives.

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  1. The Centre for Death & Society (CDAS), The University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Debra J. Bassett

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  1. Debra J. Bassett
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Correspondence to Debra J. Bassett .

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Bassett, D.J. (2022). Introduction: Contextualising Digital Afterlives. In: The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives. Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and its Successors. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91684-8_1

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