Mar 15, 2009 2:58 PM GMT
An interesting online article at MSNBC, about people who make arrangements for others to notify online friends if they should die. And about the troubles survivors had contacting online friends when pre-arrangements were not made by the deceased.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29681926/
I faced this when my partner died in 2004, and I tried to contact his AOL friends, among others. This article mentions passwords and SNs now being written in final instructions, stored on USB flash drives, and even a company that provides an online death notification service.
Grim but wise I suppose, although I see some problems. The biggest is phony death notifications, which I saw a number of times on AOL. Roomies would get themselves a second AOL account, under which they claimed to be a different person, and tell everyone their original persona had died.
A very sick grab for attention & sympathy. And strangely a number were discovered in their lies because eventually the "new" person would slip-up and his original identity would become apparent. After we had all mourned him and been upset.
So I can see similar problems with some of what this article discusses. Do any of you have such arrangements?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29681926/
I faced this when my partner died in 2004, and I tried to contact his AOL friends, among others. This article mentions passwords and SNs now being written in final instructions, stored on USB flash drives, and even a company that provides an online death notification service.
Grim but wise I suppose, although I see some problems. The biggest is phony death notifications, which I saw a number of times on AOL. Roomies would get themselves a second AOL account, under which they claimed to be a different person, and tell everyone their original persona had died.
A very sick grab for attention & sympathy. And strangely a number were discovered in their lies because eventually the "new" person would slip-up and his original identity would become apparent. After we had all mourned him and been upset.
So I can see similar problems with some of what this article discusses. Do any of you have such arrangements?