Paper short abstract:

An exploration of how social media has presented anthropological research into death and grief with new challenges such as omnipresent online traces, shifting presentations of the self, ethical algorithms, data storage and an online field-site.

Paper long abstract:

In a time in which the deaths of celebrities become hashtags on Twitter, we all have to face the question of what happens to our own digital afterlives, as well as those of our loved ones. Anthropological research into death and grief now faces new challenges: omnipresent online traces, ethical algorithms, data storage and an online field-site. Digital death: the ultimate clash of familiar human concepts of time with the ubiquitous computational time. Facebook and Instagram offer possibilities for "immortalisation" with a memorialised profile, Twitter only offers deletion. The need to humanise algorithms is now vital; 'people you may know' friend suggestions of the deceased aren't subtle. Cue companies offering to use AI to analyse activity and learn how to post for you after death. If the dead soon outnumber the living on Facebook, what happens to the feedback in social media research when it's the deceased generating data? This research began from a personal note following the death of my father. Unprepared, I found myself clinging to the digital traces that remained of him. Using participatory methods, I conversed with Facebook users who were vocalising a death on the platform. This research explores the presentation of the self across public platforms and negotiates a physical absence in light of a persistence digital presence. Essentially death is an inevitable accompaniment to our existence and, like in other fields, we are constantly catching up with technology and surrendering our control; this is no exception, perhaps we just need to acclimatise.