Materialization of Digital Death
Session Notes: John Romano
– social grief
– comparing online memorials to social networks
– transformation of social profiles into memorials
– people don’t care about their own profile but have strong feelings about other people’s profiles
– a memorialized profile still “belongs” to the deceased
– people talk TO the dead on profiles, not about the dead
– tasks of grieving
– requires talking to the dead
– also requires talking to the living
– pattern matching makes people mirror what others are doing
– creates shifting norms that people follow
– declaration of purpose of the place defines how people act
– is the social network the right place to grieve?
– what people really want their social network to do
– mixed social spheres often makes communal grieving difficult
– there are third party grieving sites that are more intentional places to grieve
– messages from the dead
– avatars