Preparing For Your Digital Afterlife

C'mon Boomers, you know you have to start thinking about this stuff. JL

Emily Fritcke reports in Slate:

What should happen to our Facebook pages? Who should cancel our recurring e-payments? And what happens to all that music we bought on iTunes? Traditionally, all your important documents and belongings would be passed on to surviving family members, but now much of our assets are tied up online. In an attempt to make it easier to prepare yourself and your loved ones for the end-of-life challenges of the digital age, we’ve created an interactive digital will generator.

Here at Future Tense, we’ve been pondering some important questions about what will happen to our digital selves after our physical lives come to an end. What should happen to our Facebook pages? Who should cancel our recurring e-payments? And what happens to all that music we bought on iTunes?

Traditionally, all your important documents and belongings would be passed on to surviving family members, but now much of our assets are tied up online. In an attempt to make it easier to prepare yourself and your loved ones for the end-of-life challenges of the digital age, we’ve created an interactive digital will generator. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions, and we’ll generate a printable document that you can include with your other important papers.

While you’re at it, you can read about the company that has cornered the digital market on death and learn how a small-town funeral home is taking steps to go digital. You can also join Future Tense, in Washington for a happy-hour conversation exploring the new ways of living and dying online and to learn practical advice from our experts on how to set your own digital affairs in order. You can RSVP to attend in person or livestream the event here.

Other things we read while checking to see whether our identities were used to help repeal net neutrality:

• Copyright mavericks: The Internet Archive has a new way to help libraries bring old books to the public despite copyright issues.
• Cyber fatigue: James Shires and Max Smeets explain how the word cyber has come to mean everything and nothing at all.
• Tech retreats: People in the tech industry who are disturbed by the negative consequences of their innovations are opening retreat centers for self-care. April Glaser suggests there are many better ways for Silicon Valley’s elite to engage in self-reflection and atonement.
• Dunking: Heather Schwedel unpacks the Twitter phenomena of “dunking” and explains why it needs to stop.
• Car subscriptions: Until recently, you could either own a car or lease it from a dealership. But now there is a third option: subscription. Christina Bonnington explains the difference between leasing and subscribing.

Generating my digital will,
Emily Fritcke
For Future Tense