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I made a discovery in March, something of which I think few people are aware. My first thought was to share my newfound information. However life managed to get in the way. Subsequent changes forced it onto a back burner . . . a back burner on a totally different stove. However I came across a link to an article that I had saved and remembered all about it. So . . .
Warning: This is an unpleasant topic. If you are currently at odds with the thought of your own mortality, you should stop reading immediately.
We all know (at least by our 30s anyway) how important it is to protect yourself and your family should the unspeakable happen. (Okay, so I am speaking about it anyway.) Many of us, especially those of us with kids, have done the arduous task of finalizing a will. Hopefully many of us have also penned a living will. We were wise to put to paper our wishes for our care, the guardianship of our children and instructions regarding our prized possessions and our *ahem* vast wealth and investments. However there is one thing that is generally overlooked that is of incredible vital importance . . . our virtual life.
Did you know that if you should die, Facebook freezes your account exactly as you left it and friends can still post comments on your wall? I don’t know about you, but the idea of my profile becoming a shrine upon my death freaks me out. What if the last status I ever enter is something embarrassing? Twenty years later, people will know that I “was puking in the toilet all day thanks to some chicken salad that had turned.” Not a comforting thought. In case of my death, I prefer my account be deleted altogether . . . and I’ll be saying so in the next update of my will.
We know to keep account, etc. information in a safe place for the executor of the will to find, but what about online account access information? Not just for financial stuff like bank, credit, and investment accounts, but also social networking and gaming sites. You would probably like eharmony to stop billing your credit card when you obviously won’t be meeting a stranger with similar core values in a public place any time soon. Perhaps you would like to avoid angering a buyer on ebay who never receives the item he bought from you. Would you like your Second life account deactivated? This is why it’s important to leave instructions to the executor in addition to account usernames and passwords. Also, let’s not forget the friends we make online. I for one, have quite a few friends with whom my only line of communication is virtual. It might be a nice idea to leave instructions on how they should be notified of your passing. Otherwise they may never know why you suddenly dropped them as a “friend” on MySpace.
Of course online financial accounts are of the utmost importance, but let’s not forget the fun stuff too. It won’t make much of a difference to us in the afterlife, but it will make things a hell of a lot easier on the family and friends we leave behind. Now you could spend good money to have a service take care of this for you. But it seems to me that it would be just as easy to keep an up-to-date list with your important papers for free.
I’ll leave you with a few links that I think are useful and/or illustrate my point. After you look at those, I suggest you go do something silly and fun to get your mind off this pesky mortality crap. I’m going to go play blocks and watch “Super Why” with my little man.
References
Title: Death & Digital Data
Title: Prepare For Your Death Online: 20+ Helpful Tools
Link: http://mashable.com/2008/01/29/prepare-for-your-death-online-20-helpful-tools/
Title: Handle your online life after death
Link: http://lifehacker.com/280982/handle-your-online-life-after-death
Title: How to Share Your Obituary with Your Online Friends
Link: http://www.wikihow.com/Share-Your-Obituary-with-Your-Online-Friends
Title: Legacy Locker passes on your passwords after you die
Link: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/43467
Title: Facebook Won't Let You Remove Dead Relative's Page, Per "Policy"
Link: http://consumerist.com/5157481/facebook-wont-let-you-remove-dead-relatives-page-per-policy
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