On Facebook, the dead outnumber the living in the end. What does this mean to our stories?

The dead woman eventually outnumber the survivors on Facebook, the new according to a study whose authors want us to think more about the importance of preserving our collective digital stories. The phenomenon could take within the next 50 years to complete, but is more likely to take, according to a research paper from the University of Oxford Internet Institute published April 23 in the journal Big Data & Company. The authors of the study, Carl J. Öhman and David Watson, uses a combination of data, including mortality and population growth rates projected users of the United Nations and Facebook over time. It may take a little ‘more than 50 years to reach the turning point, the authors admit – that the calculation assumes Facebook user growth after 2018 stopped, but the company continues to grow. However, it is likely to happen “in the early decades of the 22 th century”, they say. Öhman and Watson hope that their work as “to respond with thoughtful and effective opportunity” policies when it comes to dealing with what we are leaving behind when we die online, they wrote. “The personal digital assets left from the line is dead, or at least that part of our common cultural digital heritage”, the authors wrote, “not only valuable future historians, but for future generations as part of their registration and self-image . “the researchers say that does not carry out the study as a criticism of social media, but to start a dialogue on digital goods and identities. “We wanted to bring in a social perspective and ask what the phenomenon of people on the internet for us to die means collectively,” said Öhman time in an e-mail. A Facebook spokesman said that while the company is not with the study forecast is aware of the bigger problem. “We have a deep respect for our unique position in people’s lives and our role in the conversation take heritage seriously on building the digital age,” the spokesman said in a statement TIME. Facebook has more take action to treat the death of a user. Once the company of a friend or family member known to a temporary user is connected to Facebook, your account is a special memorial page style, after using the site. Facebook now has hundreds of thousands of accounts immortalized, the spokesman said. “To grow as Facebook and its continued applications and services family, we remain committed to supporting people with loss completed,” the spokesman said. Facebook is also working on the problem, the profiles of deceased friends live users and family show up on the side to disturb stressful ways or, as proposed in the function or when friends invitations to events to be sent. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said in a press release dated April 9 that the company hopes to remain “a place where the memory and spirit of our loved ones can celebrate and live.” As a way of living will, Facebook users can plan in advance who can access their site in the event of their death. Users can also choose their own account, they will be deleted when they die. However, the function for minors is not available, so parents who have children under age 18 must have lost a request for access to his child’s behalf. To prevent anyone from abusing this feature, and some targeting, is still alive, the commemoration application process requires documentation – Family members are encouraged to upload or provide a link to an obituary or other evidence of death the tests are available, before a Facebook team examined the request for commemoration request. Instagram, which is one of Facebook, commemorates the profiles of deceased users to requests from relatives. But the accounts are then frozen – no one can access, the account will not appear “Explore” page on Instagram, and kept the privacy settings and original visibility. Twitter now allowed to ask only the family members that the account of a deceased user will be deleted. Öhman and Watson are concerned with questions of a single individual digital story. Their article begins with a quote from George Orwell’s 1984, which sees a dystopian future with ubiquitous surveillance by the government and omnipotence. “We, the party, all the records check, and we all control memories,” reads the citation. “Then we control the past, we do not know?” The 1984 is an apt comparison, Watson has argued that the sum of our individual stories form a more meaningful social history. “The control of the past is quite a feat, and in a single company or a small number of powerful companies the power to consolidate as problematic as surrender to a totalitarian government is over,” Watson said in a long e-mail. Öhman said their choice quote contains Orwell is not a Facebook judgment, but a warning of what could happen if we are not careful, that owns our collective history. “We now have the right institutions and infrastructure to address these issues to build” Öhman TIME said in an e-mail. may include a part of this work the help of historians, archivists and political supporters soliciting Watson says. He believes that this problem is easy to handle too big to Facebook alone. “The idea that an American company trying to write quarterly profits, could potentially leave the world to manage digital heritage alone is not realistic,” says Watson.
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