An outpouring of grief and mourning on social media often follows the death of a celebrity with viewpoints posted and comments to follow.
According to MIT Technology Review, in an article entitled “The Internet Has Changed How We Deal with Death,” this phenomenon is not going to go away. It is part of the new way we grieve for the deceased.
This raises an interesting question. If people now going to have what amounts to a public funeral via social media, could they possibly plan for those funerals in the same way they now plan for their more traditional funerals?
In some ways they already can. For example, people can now designate a legacy contact for their Facebook accounts. Who knows, in the future people may designate a Twitter hashtag they would like used for expressions of grief.
The Internet has not just changed how we grieve over death. It has also changed how we should plan for our estates.
Detailing how our digital accounts are handled after we pass away is an increasingly vital part of estate planning.
