Death and Technology

A program was recently held at malcolm law to celebrate the birthday of hazing victim Cris Mendez. More importantly, the event was intended to remind the public of Cris' tragic death in the hope that the incident will not be forgotten.

After his death, it was not unusual for people to see Cris' face. After all, it was shown in almost all the news networks. The strange thing is that most of these photos were actually taken from his friendster account. Up to now, his friendster account is still up and running and you can see all his friends posting heartfelt messages in his site. I sympathize with the Mendez family for what happened to their son, but for the purposes of this blog, I find his friendster account a bit strange bordering on the eerie.

It is strange indeed to be survived by your friendster account. When you see someone on a networking site, you assume that they are still alive. Ever thought that some of the people you might be checking out on friendster, facebook or what have you may have just passed away?

If people are now used to running virtual lives distinct from the lives that they lead, what happens then when they are no longer alive? It is easy and I believe it has been exhausted in conversations, this blog included, that if something happens to our virtual lives (we lose our password, our identity gets hacked etc.) then it becomes a big inconvenience. Worst case, it becomes an intrusion to privacy. However, it seems as if no one is talking about what could happen if it was the other way around.

My mom had an officemate who recently passed away. Now, what some people in her office did was to text people using the officemate’s old cellular phone. It was done it jest and my mom told me that these people had a lot of laugh after reading the various replies of their worried and scared common friends. Replies such as "Ser, 'wag n'yo na po akong dalawin. Ok lang po ako dito" or, "Di po ba lumulusot yung daliri ninyo sa cellphone sa pagtext?"

My point for telling this story is simple: if people can use a dead person’s virtual identity for fun, what keeps them from using it for other purposes? What would keep them from using it to defraud others or perhaps inflict harm?

I can make a guess but it would probably just be as good as yours.

- Elgene L. C. Feliciano